Tulipmania...I learned a new word today.
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The Alanko Institute of Life Long Learning swings into life.
I don't think it is too unfair a comparison. Daguet Guitars make a perfectly functional Bi-Sonic pickup in a friendlier footprint, but nobody cares. Curtis Novak reissues the entire schmegegge, with a frankly baffling pole-piece adjusters and oversized flatwork, and people go crazy! Fred Hammon made replicas that looked like the originals but had different specs, and people were crowbarring them into any bass that sat still long enough.
I find it all amusing, as the early chat was all about these being
the Jack Casady and Phil Lesh pickup. Those guys played basses that were increasingly modified out, so you won't get the Crown of Creation tone, the Live Dead tone or the Europe '72 tone from these pickups necessarily, without other processing. I think Rick Turner et al were blown away by the wide bandwidth of those pickups, but we have 40 years of low-Z and active technology at our disposal now. As I suggested with
tulipmania, the price for reproductions, regardless of their accuracy, is high for the ones that look the part visually. The 'Dagstar' pickup is topologically correct, but looks like an odd Jazz bass pickup with four chunky poles. If the appeal was wholly in the tone then the Dagstars would be popular and the Dark Stars less-so.