Staggered Pole Pieces

In some single-coil pickups, the pole pieces are permanently fixed at various heights — often the B string is the lowest height while the G string is set the highest. Back in the day, manufacturers staggered the pole pieces in single-coil pickups to help even out the volume response with the string sets in use at the time — often the G string would have the lowest output (thus its tall pole piece) while the B string would have the most output (thus its low pole piece).