Pickup wire Question

[omni7]

Hi, Does anyone know how the thickness of a pickup wire could be accurately determined on a Fender pre cbs pickup?
The reason is I want to accurately date a pickup and one of the factors is the thickness of wire that was often varied in different years.
Many thanks
Jon

[Helmholtz]

Hi, Does anyone know how the thickness of a pickup wire could be accurately determined on a Fender pre cbs pickup?
The reason is I want to accurately date a pickup and one of the factors is the thickness of wire that was often varied in different years.
Many thanks
Jon

If the PU is broken you can use a micrometer gauge. Otherwise you'd probably need special optical measuring instruments.

But I don't think wire OD can give a clue regarding the production year. The data collected by Seymour Duncan shows Formvar wire ODs varying from 0.0030" to 0.0028" between 1954 and 1963. But the values typically are not specific to only one production year. Also it's not known how much the OD varied within the same year.

If the PU uses Formvar wire and has no date code on the bottom it should be from before 1964. Other things that could help would be magnet polarity/signal phase, magnet stagger pattern and magnet top bevel.

Can you post pictures from all sides?