The ghost pickup · notes
The ghost pickup.
- Type
- Single-coil electric guitar pickup
- Condition
- Broken winding; still passes signal
- Ohmmeter
- No reading
- Term
- Workshop usage, not a model name
A ghost pickup is a single coil whose wire has broken somewhere inside the winding, yet the pickup still works.1 An ohmmeter shows no reading, yet the signal still reaches the amplifier.2
Pickup maker Don Mare reports that failures of this kind turn up in the field: the meter shows nothing, and the pickup keeps working.2
Nancy.
- Guitar
- 1953 solid-body electric, serial 23241
- Player
- Roy Buchanan, 1939–19883
- Bridge pickup
- Broken winding; no ohm reading; working1
- Measured
- Don Mare, 2007: no ohm reading2
- Owner
- Collector Mac Yasuda, since the 1990s1
- Exhibited
- On occasional loan to the Fullerton Museum Center1
The best-known ghost pickup is the bridge pickup of Roy Buchanan’s 1953 guitar, nicknamed Nancy. The winding broke at some point, possibly before Buchanan owned the guitar.1
Why it is sought after.
Players who found early-1950s guitars of the same model often could not match Buchanan’s tone. The difference was the broken bridge pickup, not an effect or an amplifier.1 Don Mare attributes most of the interest in the guitar to that sound. Reproductions of the pickup are sold by at least one pickup maker.2
How a broken coil still works.
An ohmmeter needs an unbroken path; a guitar signal does not. A capacitor wired in series with a pickup has the same effect: the meter shows no reading, yet the pickup still works.4 A broken winding whose ends sit very close together is thought to act as that capacitor; reproductions of Nancy’s bridge pickup are tested with a capacitance meter.2 The exact break in Nancy’s coil has not been published.
Not to be confused with Ghost®, a piezo pickup system from Graph Tech.5
Ghost pickups are rare. Shelley offers them one at a time, as the Rácalinda, when a coil comes out a ghost.
See it — Rácalinda single coilThe ghost pickup
- Chris Gill, “Roy Buchanan’s favorite Tele – and its mysterious tonal secret,” Guitar World, 29 Aug 2026. www.guitarworld.com
- “Roy Buchanan ‘Nancy’ Tribute Telecaster Project,” ChasingGuitars, 21 Dec 2013 (quotes pickup maker Don Mare). chasingguitars.com
- “Buchanan, Roy,” CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas. encyclopediaofarkansas.net
- “My pickup has no reading but still works. What can cause this?” Seymour Duncan. www.seymourduncan.com
- Graph Tech, “Ghost® Pickup Systems” (trademark reference only). graphtech.com