Wide Range Humbuckers Old vs New: When did they change?

I have a '75 Thinline and love the original Wide Range pickups. A friend bought a brand new '72 Reissue Thinline and I don't like the new pickups at all.

When did the design change in the Fender humbuckers take place?

Brian

It changed as soon as they started reproducing them. All of the actual vintage ones have the original design, and all of the reissues have a new design, which is similar to the original mostly in cosmetics.

There have been two versions on the reissues. There was a MIJ reissue with ceramic magnets and the current reissues are MIM with alnico magnets. The alnico ones are *much* better than the ceramic ones.

What about the MIJ Fenders from '85 in particular? What's the story on those pickups?

Brian

do the "New" wide range humbuckers sound much different than a regular, ordinary humbucker?

Those MIJ guitars from the 80s have the ceramic magnets.

Both of the reissue pickups do sound a little different than typical humbuckers. They tend to be a little less bassy and a little less midrangey, but it depends on what particular humbucker you're comparing them to.

From what I understand, the originals had some unique features that aren't usually reproduced: First was the that the magnets were out of CuNiFe (no longer produced), and that instead of having a bar magnet like a PAF, it has 12 magnets, one for each polepiece.
The modern replicas are basically a normal humbucker in a larger cover. Forum member Telenator rebuilds these to be more like the originals, look him up!

KokoTele,

I'm comparing the MIJs with the original Wide Ranges from the '70s, don't really care how they compare to MIMs or Gibsons from any era.

Brian

I believe the last year of the original CuNiFe WRHB was 1981...The last production year of the Telecaster Custom (before the RI came about).