Help identifying early 60's strat

[jez]

Hi
After many years a friend of mine is thinking of moving on a couple of pickups he has had since 1963.
I would quite like them but would welcome any comment and what is a fair price these days.

There are covers but they are not from that era






many thanks

jez

[tedmich]

Welcome! A Fender collector site will probably have way more info for you but you'll need photos showing them from all sides I suspect

I would pay nothing for these, as they are old and don't suit my playing BUT collectors have been know to pay $200 for just the masking tape from early strat pickups (!?) and >$1000 US for complete vintage pickups.

Ed Roman (RIP) used to tell a humorous (to him) story about conning a very poor guy out of a vintage Strat for a few hundred bucks, but if this person is a true friend and could use money I'd tell them to test the waters on Ebay once these are identified. You can sell them for MUCH more than they are worth IMHO.

[big_teee]

Well before you go too far?
I would want to know what happened to the original black and white cloth wire.
Never seen any vintage pickups with shielded wire on them?
Someone modified the pickup and that will effect the collector value.
Don't know who is paying the tedmich money for vintage pickups, but they don't bring that kind of price in the southwest.
It should look more like this.
https://www.google.com/search?q=63+s...nd%3B418%3B249
T

[jonson]

Not just the fact of the hookup wire change Tee but why is it wired hot out from start, Fender didn't do that and not seen one in the sixties that had been taped unless it had been got at.

[jez]

thanks useful info
he got them from the UK Fender distributer in 63 both are taped like that.
I only grabbed a couple of snaps on the phone so it looks like they have had something done to them.
As long as my friend has had them they have sat in a box, he used them in a Strat a couple of years ago but is more of a Tele guy so they came out and went back into the box.

Jez

[the great waldo]

Looks like a rewind to me+ magnet tops are flat and not chamfered what happened to the formvar wire ? Very iffy. Bobbin sides look ok (stamped)

Cheers

Andrew

Not just the fact of the hookup wire change Tee but why is it wired hot out from start, Fender didn't do that and not seen one in the sixties that had been taped unless it had been got at.

[copperheadroads]

Sorry for the post ,as i lookid at the pic's on my pphone they looked like flat flush poles like a mustang pickup..........Mee bad!!!

[LtKojak]

They don't look like any Fender p'up of that era that I've seen.

Also, that shielded lead is definitely NOT original, and it's colored, a sign from asian-made p'ups.

I wouldn't give more than twenty bucks for them. IF they work at all, of course.

I don't see a hidden treasure here, sorry.

[jonson]

I wouldn't dismiss them at all as yet. If they are genuine, but because they have been dicked with then they can't go for top money but if they are right and sound good then why not. Mustangs had closed covers so these staggers are wrong for them but who's to say that they were not assembled and just used. A strat was assigned 7 hours to build so now't was rejected just used. The wire could well be formvar but as copper said 64 so your friend may have his dates wrong as to purchase. Fender used a darker formvar in 64 so that can account for these. Strange stuff happened as there is an iconic well known Strat out there with one pickup with the date stamp on the coil side and it did come from the factory like that and when I rewound that one I left it as was for the simple reason why should it be known it's been rewound. The art is to go in and leave it as it was, the secret of a good repair. Nobody would like it if someone said that their car door had been resprayed it shouldn't show and neither should a pickup repair.

[jez]

Some interesting and helpful comments

Just want to say I am enquiring out of interest in pickups, in the UK we never had a lot of 60's strats and unless you are involved in the vintage market you get to see old Hofners, Burns Vox pickups etc and stuff like that, which were the main staple for upcoming English bands in those days. Not looking to profit out of my very old friend. I am wondering if what he got from the distributor as fender replacements for a customer in his shop who had trouble with his pickups are actually Vox. As we did not have Fender till 1959 and probably not in volume till the early 60's. Looking at google I get one of these from a 60's Vox as they made a number of poor Strat style imitations to cash in on the look of the USA market that had not been available but seen in media at the time.

this is not an exact match but it shows Vox were making pickups in the style of Fender and perhaps this type or another model would fit into strat covers.




All Opinions are welcome :-)

Jez

[David Schwab]

Clearly someone changed the hookup wire, probably back when people used to do a lot of shielding, which of course they still do.

That doesn't mean the pickups are not genuine. The color of the wire looks like Formvar to me. Remember that it's old wire.