Fidelis '30s Monkey-on-a-Stick pickup (---)

[murrayatuptown]

Hello:

I bought a guitar from a friend with a Fidelis pickup, said to be German from (late?) 1930's. The mount is similar to a DeArmond Rhythm Chief & others.

EDIT: Two German's opinions are that they have never heard of this, and the 2nd person researched historical company and logo registrations, finding no records. Also, RCA phono jacks were extremely rare their until the mid-late-70's.

Fidelis is Latin for faithful, but that doesn't help.

I have seen very little info online about the pickup, mainly forum discussion.

Does anyone know of someone familiar with the internals? This one works, sounds good, but the pots are getting worn and intermittent.

Thank you

[murrayatuptown]

[murrayatuptown]

French pots inside.

Asked someone I should have asked earlier and he sent me an ad for the pickup.. The guitar looks to me like a DiMauro Chorus, from 40's-50's, if anyone cares.

[garybaldy]

Fascinating guitar. Odd that the pu mounting is on the lines of a MOAS but has no sliding facility.
Sorry, seems like I'm not the only one who can't help you though.

[murrayatuptown]

Fascinating guitar. Odd that the pu mounting is on the lines of a MOAS but has no sliding facility.
Sorry, seems like I'm not the only one who can't help you though.

I called it a monkey, but it seems the designer felt strongly about placement near the neck on guitars that placement agreed with, and perhaps wasn't trying to support other sound hole types.

It seems they made other types, but the internet doesn't talk about them...not very loudly.

[murrayatuptown]

I've read cracks are common on these.
Some say it's from the design of the bracing, but age and lack of climate control may be contributors.

I just got it back from a luthier who addressed three cracks. Two were done before I acquired it.
However, it was pointed out the neck has some twist. He did some fretwork & called it playable. Something to think about.

The tone control was not functioning. I found the capacitor was fractured...replaced, which was more work than anyone probably wants to read about.

While the guitar without pickup was in the shop I tested the repaired pickup by cabling it up, plugging into an amp, strumming another archtop's strings and moving this pickup close to that guitar and repeating a few times with different control settings.

The original pickguards were sometimes tortoiseshell, sometimes celluloid. I don't know how to tell the difference. Maybe it's obvious with some thought...TS may have growth pattern under magnification and celluloid wouldn't.

Maybe this weekend I'll put the PU back on.

[JFranck]

Hi Murray
I think your guitar has been made by René Gérome in Mirecourt, France, or his sons who took over the workshop in 1968, and made the same kind of instruments .
They left the workshop to Philippe Moneret who retired last year.
Just a moment...
I've seen some of these but never with this kind of pickup, rather a Stimer.
According to a friend, Fidelis made amps, just like Stimer, so they could also have made pickups. Perhaps Quantilidyne was the manufacturer.

[murrayatuptown]

Thank you.

I saw a Quantilidyne ad in an early 40's magazine that had wording similar to Stimer...describing how many amps & pickups, but they disappeared with little trace. Yet C.Y. Guen is still hard at work. He shared some component descriptions.

Definitely Gerome...the label inside says that. The pickup was the mystery for a while ?