I've got a 1987 RG440. I like the bridge pickup, but I have been unable to find any information on it. It is simply labelled "Vintage" in metallic lettering. From what I can tell this was only used on the RG410, RG420, RG440, and RG440P (with the "Power" body shape as part of the "Roadstar II" series). https://www.vintagejapanguitars.com....540-catalogue/ You can see the pickup in the catalog.

To my ears it sounds a little "scooped", but with a "tighter" bass/lower mids and less "sizzle" on the treble compared to the DiMarzio Steve's Special that I have. It seems to be pretty high-output, but not overly so. I'm looking for new bridge PU for RG560 and I kinda want something that is similar to the "Vintage" pickup used in the RG440, but I don't know what that would be.

Thanks!

Dimarzio designed the "vintage" ibanez pickups and ibanez produced them. Most of those old guitars had a humbucker that was called IBZ. The 410 and the 440 had that. But they are ibanez made pickups... Not too much info about them out there.

The V1 though like...V8 I believe are called that because they are of the "vintage" family. but anywhere I've seen the old 87 to like 90 have the IBZ pickups. I did see the catalog pic and it does indeed say vintage across the pickup. I hope any little bit I said helps you out because that's the only thing I know about them...

You're right the V designations do stand for "Vintage". My RG440 say "Vintage" on the pickup just like one in the catalog. The 86 Roadstars (with Edge tremolo) do use something that is just called IBZ, but it looks totally different. The single coils are apparently something called a "Super 8". Mysterious!

The IBZ pickups which featured prominently on 1985-86 guitars are indeed quite different from what came later –*they have three ceramic magnets and are epoxied into the plastic cover, kinda like an EMG. In terms of timbre, in my experience, pretty hot, fat and compressed. 12k resistance. The single coils were Super 7F, also ceramic (two small rail mags on either side of the steel slugs), 4k resistance.

Regarding the specs of the 1987 era V pups, I think both the neck and bridge hb have A5 mags, 10k and 15k resistance respectively, I remember reading this somewhere. The ones used in the RG550 were the V1/2 (the block lettering on the bobbin wasn't present in 1987, bridge pu sometimes had the sticker saying 'vintage' like on yours) and I think in the RG4x of that year, the bridge pu was the same as in the 550. Someone else who might know better may chime in!

In general, since 1987 was a transitional year for various specs and models, it's difficult to account for every guitar model, as the catalogues of that year don't give the full picture.

I have more than one V2 humbucker kicking around (from 1989 560, 1991 550, and 1991 450S), so next time I take the guitar apart I should measure the DC resistance and see if they are similar. It wouldn't be conclusive, but it would be something. I had noticed that some shots of RG550s in the catalogs don't have the pickups labelled.