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Permalink Reply by Moritz Voegeli on May 8, 2017 at 10:21pm

I don't believe we will see the Matchbook there in the next future: some weeks ago I mailed Donald Lace without provoking a reaction from his side:

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Donald hi,

Your problem will not be that some few crazy people build some current driven pickups with wall wart transformers or the like, but another ones:

If you study the market for cigar box guitar pickups, you will see that it will be hard to sell the Matchbooks in interesting quantities for more than 45 bucks: this is the price of an excellent 2K ultraflat humbucker built by several providers, and to this pickup the Matchbook will be compared.

Cigar box guitar builders typically have a bunch of them around, so mostly they use cheap chinese pickups in the 15 to 25 bucks range if not piezos for a buck or two. This makes a big difference in marketing compared to marketing real guitar pickups.

On the other side, you can restrict your marketing to just two information channels, http://www.cigarboxnation.com/ and http://handmademusicclubhouse.com/ and two providers of cigar box guitar parts, https://www.cbgitty.com/ and https://www.chickenbonejohn.com/, a situation which is very different as for your real guitar pickups.

You will have another and yet more serious problem: most cigar box guitars are built with the neck through the box which makes it difficult if not impossible to install a Matchbook pickup.

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Chickenbone John built two high end CBGs with matchbooks, check his experiences about Matchbook pickups on http://www.cigarboxnation.com/photo/new-guitar-with-lace-alumitone-...

Check the alumitone clone mounted on a neck, realized by Joseph J. Rogowski and luthier Rick Toone: http://www.ricktoone.com/2009/06/lace-alumitone.html: 

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Permalink Reply by Donald Lace on May 9, 2017 at 5:53am

 Thanks for your thoughts.....It would be up to this site or any site to carry the Matchbook pickup. Certainly, as exposure grows about  the sonic qualities as well as visual to "match" the cigar box theme we feel that there will be the builder who doesn't want a cheap pickup and doesn't want an afterthought product. As the builders become more and more creative and confident in their creations only the best products will be used. Of course, there is the build as cheap as possible goals which are really fun in themselves and we get that also.

As for installation, yes in most cases a hole will be required to run the coil thru. Most guitars do have a cut out of some area on a electric guitar and the CBG is no different.

Shane has received a Matchbook pickup to check out , so hopefully there will be more information on it for this forum soon.

Thanks for your time folks!

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Permalink Reply by Cigar Box Nation on May 9, 2017 at 6:47am

I've been talking to Gitty about carrying them.  Don was kind enough to send me a sample pickup. I'm building an entire cigar box guitar around it in order to test it.  Yes, I'm challenged by the neck-thru construction of my usual building style and working with the electronics thingy in the back of the Matchbook... but hell, the challenge is what's awesome about building these things.  

And for you guys who don't know... Don Lace is f***ing legendary in the guitar world.  My mind is blown that he has even made a cigar box guitar pickup.  I've been drooling over his Lace Sensor pickups for decades. 

Shane

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Permalink Reply by Moritz Voegeli on May 9, 2017 at 7:16am

Sure Shane there's no need to discuss about the quality of the Lace pickups, but if I had to kill a big piggy bank for a cbg pickup I will stay for my sunday's boxes with the Alumitone humbuckers I can move from one box to another without problems, with their total height of 18mm.

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Permalink Reply by Moritz Voegeli on May 9, 2017 at 6:23am

Donald hi,

I don't agree with your statement «most guitars do have a cut out of some area on a electric guitar and the CBG is no different»: most of them are different...

Here two photos of a typical cigar box guitar: as these boxes are far from sturdy, the tension produced by the strings relies on the neck which goes through the box:

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Permalink Reply by Donald Lace on May 9, 2017 at 6:30am

Yes we know that....so you believe that a cutout will collapse the guitar? Sorry, we don't agree with that. Everyone has their thoughts on this haven't heard of that problem from any of the builders so far...

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Permalink Reply by Moritz Voegeli on May 9, 2017 at 6:39am

Chickenbone John built two high end CBGs with matchbooks, check his experiences about Matchbook pickups on http://www.cigarboxnation.com/photo/new-guitar-with-lace-alumitone-...

He resolved the problem in a manner which rends impossible to exchange the neck, which for him is not necessary as his necks have truss rods.

There will never be market volume for cigar box guitars in the $1000 range...

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Permalink Reply by Cigar Box Nation on May 9, 2017 at 7:09am

Who says there won't be a market for $1000 cigar box guitars?  Last time I checked, there were no rules to this art.  Matty Baratto is outfitting cigar box guitars to

• Paul McCartney
• Steven Tyler
• Johnny Depp
• Queens of the Stone Age
• Dave Grohl
• Jack Black
• Keith Richards
• ...and so on and so forth

Most of the cigar box guitars he sells are well more than a mere $1000.  

At the same time, we have people who make simple, Depression Era inspired instruments from broomsticks and empty boxes.  Imperfect, creaky and awesome.

I play 'em all.  Cheap, expensive, in between.  I also build them all.  I've sold mine for as cheap as $35 and as expensive as $800.  The price depends on the art.  The art depends on my muse.

shane

ps.  To have Don Lace making cigar box guitar pickups is an honor. 

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Permalink Reply by Moritz Voegeli on May 9, 2017 at 7:33am

Don't understand me wrong, I spoke about market volume, I know there are Daddy Mojo, John McNair and others, even old school luthiers, they sell boxes from $1000 up.

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Permalink Reply by darryl kernaghan on May 9, 2017 at 1:52pm

I think the cut out for a pup problem is very overstated Moritz, just look at any given days pics on the home page at C B N, an awful lot of the instruments carry "conventional" type pickups, mounted in various ways, and most often in stick through's, notching out and re inforcing necks is common every day practice on C B G's, whilst i've not seen the underside of Donald's match books, i'm pretty sure it is a lot less intrusive than most conventional type pups, my own induction type pups require, just a tiny notch on one corner of a neck through for the transformer to clear, even if it was mounted centrally, which i suspect the Matchbooks are, it is still a lot less than a humbucker, or even a conventional single coil requires for clearance

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Permalink Reply by Moritz Voegeli on May 9, 2017 at 5:30pm

Darryl, check Matchbook bottom view to get the idea...

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Permalink Reply by darryl kernaghan on May 9, 2017 at 5:44pm

Hard to get a sense of scale there Moritz, but i'm guessing overall about 50mm sq, which would make the centre square about 20 mm or less, i'd have no issue boring a neck through to accomodate that, but almost any pup, bar a flat pup type is probably going to need some sort of relief on a neck through, even on flat pups i tend to take a little more off the neck just to give wires/screws a little clearance

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