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FENDER GUITAR PICKUPS

Here are a few pictures of Fender Stratocaster guitar pickup assemblies from various years. Notice that the older black bobbin pickups had no date applied to the bottom. The grey back pickups which show up in 1964 have a yellow stamp applied to the back. This in turn changes to a handwritten date. Note the use of a pearloid back on the pickguard assembly from 1969. This is only found on some pickguards from 1968 and 1969 and is totally original. The pickguard was white-black-pearloid in construction.


1958 Stratocaster


1959 Stratocaster


1961 Stratocaster


1962 Stratocaster


1964 Stratocaster


1966 Stratocaster


1969 Stratocaster


1981 Stratocaster


Formvar wire was used on all the Strat pickups up until 1964. After the company was sold to CBS, like a lot of things, changes were made and they switched from Formvar to plain enamel. The first list below, in the pull-down menu, is a list of wire guages and number of turns for Fender guitar pickups. The second list has some basic Fender pickup specs.

Fender Stratocaster Pickup Specs
Year Ohms Wire OD Insulation Turns
1954 5.76k .0030" Formvar 7956
1955 5.89k .0029" Formvar 7844
1956 5.98k .0029" Formvar 8012
1957 6.02k .0029" Formvar 8105
1958 6.20k .0028" Formvar 8350
1959 5.95k .0030" Formvar 7925
1960 6.33k .0028" Formvar 8293
1961 6.19k .0029" Formvar 8119
1962 6.22k .0028" Formvar 8220
1963 6.37k .0028" Formvar 8319
1964 6.25k .0027" Formvar/Enamel 7980
1965 5.80k .0026" Plain Enamel 7626
1966 5.76k .0026" Plain Enamel 7630
1967 5.88k .0027" Plain Enamel 7656
Year Ohms Wire OD Insulation Turns