Pickups in a Fender Nocaster Relic NOT the same as store bought Nocaster pickups?

[AJ Love]

My cousin traded me his bridge pickup from his Fender Nocaster Relic guitar. I don't think this is the same as a standard Nocaster pickup you buy at the store (besides the appearance, it is "aged" looking).

First off it measures 6.8 ohms, not the 7.2-7.4 like the store bought ones, and it has less of the very prominent upper-mids that the store bought ones do...it sounds flat-out fantastic

and the base-plate is a "silver" color, not the dark brass look of the store bought Nocaster pickups... I'm positive that this is the exact pickup that came from a Fender Custom Shop Nocaster guitar...

wondering if anyone else has similar experiences?

[AJ Love]

here's a couple pictures

[sjtalon]

I bought ( about three months ago) a Nocaster CS set for a project and there are known discrepancies in what Fender claims on the "box". Their website specs don't match what's on the box either so who knows ??

My bridge is 6.95K ( I've read others have this resistance also)

the packaging claims 7.3 and their website says 7.72.

There is an older type "hotter" one they had but they are in the 9-10K range I think so you are not in that spec. ( as far as from what now is the norm))



As far as the plate, I don't know of any (Nocaster) that aren't "silver" looking as that is what is distinct of a Nocaster........the ZINK plate. Copper ( is that what you mean by the dark look) is on the Original Vintage.

[sjtalon]

While we're on the subject.
Here's something else I saved once but don't remember where I got it from.

>The story goes like this. Fred Stuart was in charge of getting the first Relic Tele together. When they started they used a real 51 Tele as a guide. This particular Tele had a 9.9-10k pickup in it. SO when they made the first Nocasters this is also the spec they used for the pickup.

Sometime around 2000 Abigail Yabarra was messing around with one of those and said you know the spec is all wrong on this pickup it should be 7.3-7.5k so thats when they took out the overwound pickups and replaced them with the more normal wound ones.

[kingofdogs1950]

I bought a set of Nocasters recently from another forum member. They measure 7.50 kohm bridge and 7.32 kohm neck. The Nocasters do seem to vary a little. I'm happy with mine.

Mark

[boris bubbanov]

Originally Posted by sjtalon

>The story goes like this. Fred Stuart was in charge of getting the first Relic Tele together. When they started they used a real 51 Tele as a guide. This particular Tele had a 9.9-10k pickup in it. SO when they made the first Nocasters this is also the spec they used for the pickup.

Sometime around 2000 Abigail Yabarra was messing around with one of those and said you know the spec is all wrong on this pickup it should be 7.3-7.5k so thats when they took out the overwound pickups and replaced them with the more normal wound ones.

That's Mark Davis' submission.

But Mike Eldred seemed to differ with that submission, so I'm confused.

++

AJ, that pickup out of your cousin's guitar - that looks way different than the bridge pickup that comes in the boxed retail set. Aside from no badge (correct) the jumper is way higher and centrally located than any No-Caster pup I've seen, retail or in a CS guitar. The pole pieces are higher, too and the apparent color looks too silvery. On the retail Nocaster pups, the Zinc coating is only 1 shade lighter than the off black fibre on the neck pickup bobbin.

I'm wonderin' - don't the Masterbuilt guys wind their own pickups for all the special guitars they do? And exactly what happens to the extra pickups they wind that aren't pressed immediately into that particular Masterbuilt guitar?
You might have a "special" there.

[AJ Love]

thats what I was thinking, Boris, it looks much different than the Nocaster pickups I've seen from the retail boxes. Correct, it doesn't have a sticker/badge on the baseplate...

I haven't seen too many pickups out of a Custom Shop Nocaster guitar. so I wonder if this is a normal thing... this wasn't a Masterbuilt CS, just a regular Nocaster Relic from 2006

[surfoverb]

Mike Eldred needs to chime in...I heard a few times that the heavy relic Nocasters have degaussed magnets and also that Curtis Novak does some winding for the Masterbuilts...ah the internets lol

[AJ Love]

I hope more people might chime in on this... I suppose the amount of people who have taken apart a Fender Custom Shop Nocaster and have examined the pickup and compared it to a store bought Nocaster pickup might be low, but ya never know...

it sure is a great sounding pickup... I'm doing some studio work with it in a couple of weeks. Will post clips when I have them

[OaklandA]

I have a set of the Relic Nocaster pickups that I got on eBay a few months ago. I've never used them so I can't comment on tone or characteristics. The relicing is real enough looking, though. My understanding is that they ARE a slightly different animal than the stand alone CS Nocaster sets you can buy.

If I can borrow a multimeter I'll try and get output readings.

I have no use for these as I'll not likely have a project for them for a long time....so you may see them in the Classifieds soon.

[vanguard]

i've owned lots of nocaster pickups, both the old 10k version and the new 7k version. i've owned relics and NOS's. if the bridge pickup came out of a stock fender CS guitar, it will not have a sticker. they're ALWAYS that way. if it was bought after market, it will have a sticker. the new nocaster bridge pickup always varies between around 6.5k up to 7.8k. both the old and new style always had flush alnico 3's and a zinc coated (silver) base plate. the old style was wire 43, the new one wire 42.

what you have is a standard nocaster pickup out of a relic guitar. the reliced pickups are slightly degaussed, but otherwise the same. yours sounds less hot because it's wound on the low end of the spectrum

[superbadj]

Here's my aftermarket Nocaster. Reads 9.6k, but I bought it in Dec 2008 brand new from a huge dealer on Ebay. Could it be an old one? I dunno. Seems like it wouldn't have sat around unused all that time. But this one has never been used (until I installed it).

[AJ Love]

A year later I have a little more insight on this: the pickup I mentioned in the original post (still have it, its an amazing sounding pickup and a huge part of my partscaster Esquire) came from a "Masterbuilt" Nocaster, not just a regular Fender Nocaster Relic.

I have a friend who takes apart many of these Custom Shop guitars and he insists that the Masterbuilt Nocaster pickups are not at all the same as the store bought Nocaster pickups

[mrmorrison]

Originally Posted by AJ Love

A year later I have a little more insight on this: the pickup I mentioned in the original post (still have it, its an amazing sounding pickup and a huge part of my partscaster Esquire) came from a "Masterbuilt" Nocaster, not just a regular Fender Nocaster Relic.

I have a friend who takes apart many of these Custom Shop guitars and he insists that the Masterbuilt Nocaster pickups are not at all the same as the store bought Nocaster pickups

You lucky dog, you!

[all_identaties_taken]

The custom shop relic the pickups as well the ones you buy are the same as the CC and NOS.

[guitarsquire]

Originally Posted by sjtalon

I bought ( about three months ago) a Nocaster CS set for a project and there are known discrepancies in what Fender claims on the "box". Their website specs don't match what's on the box either so who knows ??

My bridge is 6.95K ( I've read others have this resistance also)

the packaging claims 7.3 and their website says 7.72.

There is an older type "hotter" one they had but they are in the 9-10K range I think so you are not in that spec. ( as far as from what now is the norm))

As far as the plate, I don't know of any (Nocaster) that aren't "silver" looking as that is what is distinct of a Nocaster........the ZINK plate. Copper ( is that what you mean by the dark look) is on the Original Vintage.

29/07/12 I have a genuine early "No-Caster" relic bridge pickup custom shop part number 099-2103-000 which measures 9.64kohms and has the zinc shielding plate as it should have. The box reads "with flush mounted Alnico 3 magnets...this overwound pickup creates a loud and proud vintage tone that is distinctively ÿFender." I think I bought this in 1998/9 custom ordered from Fender