The double jazz bass bridge pickup

[WillyW]

Does anyone know the history of these oddball pickups?

When did they first appear, why aren’t they used more often?

this is the one I mean..

 

[haggardPHUNK]

These were in the bridge of American Deluxe P Basses for awhile. I have one and I’m not a huge fan of it. Its ok. I kinda wish they would have opted for a regular j bridge pickup like they do on the more recent American Deluxe’s.

 

[bigtone23]

I'm not sure of any crafty techs that created these long before commercial production by sanding off the screw nubs and gluing 2 J pickup together. However, the Ibanez Super J6 (shown below) is a dual J pickup used extensively in the early to mid 80s. I had a couple basses with these (83 RB820 and RB920). I popped the cover off one and there were two standard J coils in there, each coil metered around 9K. Great pickup, the single coil tone was pure J, in parallel, they have a passive Stingray pickup kind of vibe. In series, it's a monster!
I have a '00 US Dlx P V with the dual J bridge pickup. It balances perfectly with the split coil pickup, both in volume and tone.