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Identifying Fender pickups

davie blue
April 9th, 2008, 02:48 PM
Hey people, wonderin' if you could help me out. Through craigslist I found a guy who will trade me a set of Fender Texas Specials (for Tele) for some other pickups I'm not using. Since they are used pickups, it occurred to me that I'm not sure I would know Texas Specials if I saw them. Having been burned on craigslist before, I thought I'd ask for help.

Are there distinguishing features on these pickups so I will know they are the pickups he says they are? For example, I've heard the neck pickup has 3 wires, is that right? And the bridge pickup has a copper base plate. But other than that, how can you ID them? Do they have any markings or logos anywhere?

I hate that I have to be so suspicious of folks these days. Anyway. I'm excited to try out these pickups, so thanks very much for your help in advance!

13ontheB
April 9th, 2008, 03:14 PM
They have the following:

Alnico 5 magnets Bridge
DC Resistance: 10.5K
Inductance: 3.95 Henries

Neck
DC Resistance: 9.5K
Inductance: 3.3 Henries

Fiber bobbin Enamel-coated magnet wire
Copper-plated steel bottom plate on bridge pickup
Height staggered magnets

Vizcaster
April 9th, 2008, 07:29 PM
Texas Specials also are recognizeable from the cloth insulated wire, white and black, which should be saturated with wax from wax potting. The fiber bobbins, which 13ontheB pointed out, are sort of like phenolic impregnated cardboard, thick uneven black stuff that looks like it was stamped out rather than molded like plastic. Impossible to have any numbers molded into the bobbins like standard pickups. If you're lucky there's a silver mylar V custom shop sticker on the back of one of them.

yegbert
April 9th, 2008, 08:30 PM
Bridge and neck pics attached.

...cloth insulated wire, white and black, which should be saturated with wax from wax potting.

Yellow and black on the bridge, yellow, black and white on the neck.

davie blue
April 9th, 2008, 11:14 PM
Sweet! You guys rock!

So the pickups were the real deal, but I'm glad I was skeptical - we plugged the neck pickup into the ol' voltmeter and didn't get a reading at all! He wound up giving me the neck pickup for free, and I'm going to see if a friend of mine will rewind it.