Fender American Vintage '65 Strat Pickups

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Re: Fender American Vintage '65 Strat Pickups

The pickups are in the American Vintage '65 Strat, and they're factory equipment on the Jimi Hendrix Stratocaster, where they are reverse mounted for a Hendrixian pole piece stagger.

http://shop.fender.com/en-US/electric-guitars/stratocaster/american-vintage-65-stratocaster/0111800800.html#start=1

http://shop.fender.com/en-US/electric-guitars/stratocaster/jimi-hendrix-stratocaster/0145802305.html#start=1

According to Fender they are the same pickups they sell here.

http://shop.fender.com/en-US/accessories/pickups/pure-vintage-65-strat-pickups/0992237000.html
 
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Re: Fender American Vintage '65 Strat Pickups

I dunno but it appears that the staggers are on the d and g string position so no matter whichaway you mount them it turns out the same but then I got two good eyes but still can't see.
 
Re: Fender American Vintage '65 Strat Pickups

I think there's more to it than that. The opposite pairs of outer strings have different pole piece heights on all the vintage-stagger single-coils in my guitars. That is, the two E's have different pole piece heights, and the A and the B are at different heights. When you flip the pickup end for end, the high E & B now have the pole pieces closer to them, and the low E and A have pole pieces that are farther away.

Photos of DiMarzio YJM (HS-4), Fender Modern Player Strat pickups, Fender Texas Specials.

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Re: Fender American Vintage '65 Strat Pickups

Yes, you are correct, I couldn't see the stagger on the 5th an 6th from the pics you linked to. But I think that with Hendrix if there was no stagger or reversed stagger it would have made no difference. An example might be listening to his Gibson Flying V rendition of Red House, the tone was there but the staggers were not.
 
Re: Fender American Vintage '65 Strat Pickups

Technically they should be a more affordable production version of the CS69s. A5s, plain enamel and high 5K. That goes in line with the swap from Formvar to Plain Enamel in mid '64 I believe.

The new Vintage series have gotten good reviews, if you want the slightly bigger bass and scoopier mids, they're probably a great pickup (and I'd love to try them)
 
Re: Fender American Vintage '65 Strat Pickups

All I can add is I have original '66 pickups in a '66 and I can say reverse stagger makes a difference. It's along the lines of humbuckers with and without covers and wax no wax, etc. the average player who is depending on their amp and modeling to make the sound and masking what the guitar is doing might not hear it. But a player who knows his guitar really well and has clocked hours and days with it and then switches pickups can detect that little bit that changed.
 
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