Question:
10 days ago I bought an MIK Ibanez AR300 guitar that not only appeared
totally stock it also appeared near new.
But a lot of folks on some Ibanez boards were curious about the
guitar because it had some features the Korean Ibanez Artists did
not have as stock and they wanted to see the underside of the
pickups.
Last night my curiousity got the best of me and I loosened the strings
and checked out the neck pickup - haven't checked the treble yet.
Sure enough, you can see part of the Seamour Duncan logo on the
backside of the pickup with a couple of stickers there as well as "Made
in America". That's not stock on an Ibanez Artist.
Pic of back of pickup:
Whoever bought the guitar threw a boatload of parts at it, Schaller
fine tuning stoptail, roller bridge as well as Grover Imperial tuners all
in gold. Now I find there are Duncans in the guitar. No wonder it
sings so well.
The pickups were gold plated humbuckers and each had trisound
switching. Some of the Ibby folk raised their eyebrows since the
AR300 guitars produced in Korea did not have this feature at all
and they thought it was someone who modified the guitar to make
it more like an AR300 from the 70s. Trisound switching allows
humbucker, single coil and reverse phase dual coil modes.
I also took a look in the pickup cavity: I was trying to determine
the thickness of the maple cap and there's a lot of shielding paint
inside the cavity although there's a thin line showing that it may
be about as thick as the old artists - fairly substantial.
Note: pics are gigantic so just save to your drive and take a peek.
Ideas anyone?

Answer:
Heres the Duncan Code chart.

Answer:
No expert here, but could be an invader, or full shred. You would have to take it out of the gold cover to see what the screws look like. Note, the second letter is often the employee id. Also you could probably better confirm this if the bridge pickup started with the letter B.

Answer:
Thanks for the list but "NC" doesn't appear to be anywhere on the list....
I'll be checking the bridge pickup later today. Strangeness.

Answer:
Thanks for the list but "NC" doesn't appear to be anywhere on the list....
I'll be checking the bridge pickup later today. Strangeness. The "C" may be the employee id.

Answer:
N C is probably a Full Shred neck and the C is the employee identifier.
I could be wrong though.

Answer:
N C is probably a Full Shred neck and the C is the employee identifier.
I could be wrong though. Oh yea..., I guess the screws go through the cover into the pup. My bad.

Answer:
Totally weird too - the neck pickup is dark, smoky and jazzy clean.
The first run of chords on this mp3 is the neck pickup.
Dirty it's a more cultured version of the Eric Clapton at Albert Hall 335 tone....
tubular but with not a lot of hair around it, think almost Eric Johnson circa
electromagnets period when he was playing Les Pauls.
About as far from Metal as you can get.

Answer:
Hmm, I wonder if that other sticker was a serial number, and maybe whatever the 'signature' is was lost. Could be a Seth Lover. Also starts with "N"

Answer:
Into Nation may have it right. A Seth Lover in the Neck of that guitar makes perfect sense. And the serial #'s on the other sticker are listed as identifiers as well as the N.
Either pickup is a solid choice IMO.
Now Im wondering if the bridge is part of the Seth Lover set.
Killer pickups btw and Nice looking guitar OP.

Answer:
You can measure it's d.c resistance with a multimeter and go to SD.com to find out what pickups they are.:thu:

Answer:
Looks like they're a matching set:
In one of the pickup cavities you can see where the maple cap
is glued to the mahogany body:

Answer:
One more bump for the late nighters and third opinions.
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Let's see some closups?
The New Kid?
Recomend me a tube solo boost?
Clip: Short JVM 205 snippet (Stonerish)?
Exodus-Fabulous Disaster?
Say What You Want But Rambo Was Some Fine Piece of Cinema?