older Duncan Jazz - polepieces on one coil are not grounded

[horstausmforst]

Hey there,
what I got here is a strange older Duncan Jazz pickup. (The Baseplate reads 'made in america', not 'made in the USA'), but on to the question:
The non-adjustable pole pieces are not grounded, that means, there is no flow from the polepieces to the bare wire. They also aren't connected to each other.
But the coil itself works flawlessly.

The adjustable polepieces are normal; all of them are connected to ground as usual.

Is the pickup defective or was it meant to be like that? I checked other pickups and they all had all polepieces grounded.

[Champagne Mist]

i would assume that the reason you would ground the pole pieces is to reduce losses in the magnets themselves due to eddy currents...

i personally wouldn't worry about it

[horstausmforst]

Thanks,
I investigated a bit further and found a '59 neck model with the same behaviour - and I never had any problems with that pickup. So it seems that it was just meant that way.

[buddroyce]

I'm pretty sure that's the way they were supposed to be.. but if you're unsure you can always e-mail the folks at Seymour Duncan or shoot a post on the Duncan forum, I'm sure someone there can give you a hand.