Whoa, the possibilities are broad...
Whoa, the possibilities are broad...
I just opened up the pickguard on my 1996 American Stratocaster, and found a set of Custom Shop pups installed. Are these an OEM item? The funny thing is, I opened it up in order to install a set of Texas Specials. After swapping them out for the hell of it, I can report the Texas Specials do not sound as good as the set I removed. I lost the fullness of the bass tones on the neck pickup, but did like the highs of the bridge pickup, especially when played through the "lead" channel of my Mesa DC-5.
So, can anyone tell me how to determine which Custom Shop pups I have here?
Thanks in advance, everyone!
Good Luck!
Really though, no they wouldn't be OEM in a '96 Ameri Strat. When CS pickups are used as OEM parts they typically don't have the Silver CS sticker affixed to the bottom flatwork. Of course any previous owner could've still had the CS pickups retrofitted and then taken the stickers off as well. So, go figure, eh.
Strat-wise usually you'll always have a RWRP middle p-up except maybe with the '54 models. The neck p-up will usually have a blue mark (dot) on the bottom, and a pinkish/red mark on the bridge when bought as a set. For instance, if you buy a (let's say) Texas Special Strat Bridge P-up seperately, it may have no marking at all, just the sticker. I know none of this info will help you distinguish the make of the model that you're wondering about. Obviously if they're the '69 p-ups they'll have gray flatwork. Plus if they're Abby wound she signs the bottom "Abby" w/ a date, if her 'team' wound them they'll have "AY" and the date written in pen (..from what I understand).
Okay, they're most likely not "masterwound" pickups that come in specific CS guitars. Here's a scenario... If they're NOT any of the typical aftermarket CS pickups, the previous owner could have taken the set out of another guitar, like a '60s NOS, CC, or Relic (replaced them) and put these in that guitar. If that's the case you could have a stock set used specifically for the '56, '60, '65 Time Machines, etc...
'54s, & Tx-Spc will have the darker reddish brown Formvar wire. '69 (besides having the gray flatwork will have the orangish wire. I don't recall what the Fat '50s have and even though they're speced as the hottest output used historically in ~'58 err, or '59 the may be orangish too, similar to '62 models. Best bet is, you may be able to measure the Ohms of them and then try to match them to the specs that Fender lists in their literature.
But since you like them better than what you wanted, well then, I guess in the end that's all that matters. As long as they sound good/great then play em' and love 'em as they are; sprinkled with a little mojo-mystery. :bigok:
