Travis

First of all, welcome. Second of all, you are required to post pics of your new Hamers. As far as the pickups go, without owning either the Jr. or the Monaco, I can say that I tend to prefer the hotter ceramic pickups. They just respond to my playing style a little bit better. There are only two guitars I own that still have the stock pickups, my Hamer Artist Korina HB and my Mirage I. Most of my others have a Duncan Distortion in the bridge, some have the Distortion in the neck as well. But that is neither here nor there. My impression of Hamer's choice on pickups is this: pickups are a very individual kind of thing. It would be extremely difficult to provide a pickup in a guitar that is loved by everyone. After all, how many people have you heard of who swap the pickups out of the Historic Gibsons or the Custom PRS's. Hamer may just be trying to keep the cost down on the guitars by offering "assembly line" Duncans. But what the hell do I know. I'm not an old fart who likes the AlNiCo pickups.