Hi, I've recently been buying pickups on Ebay to upgrade my guitars.

First off the interesting stuff, I put a Strat bridge pickup in the neck position (by mistake). With the tone half way on the Strat & played through a Frontman amp it sounded incredible. Real deep silky smooth Hendrix sound & the strings feel very live if picked just behind this pickup.

Have I discovered something here or is this a known thing?

Not as lucky with the other pair I picked up on Ebay (supposedly 80s USA Strat). They're identical (and I mean identical) to ones on a canablised Chinese copy I have lying around (even down to part number). Solid strip of magnet covering the back of the pole pieces on the bottom and a screened lead (not 2 wires coming out).

How can I tell if Fender made this type of construction?

Fender USA has never used pickups like that in a Strat. You are right in that they are typical Asian made pickups. They could have come from a Squier perhaps...

I am also one who likes an aggressive neck pickup. I have been real happy with some bridge pickups being used as neck pickups. It's not so much that your bridge pickup was made to be a bridge pickup specifically, as it was made to be calibrated with the middle and neck pickups in a set. And there is no magic science to calibration either. Every company does it differently. The bridge pickup is often the stronger of the three pickups just because the lack of string vibration near the bridge itself makes a bridge pickup sound weaker.

So for example, because the Texas Special set is designed to be a thicker toned set of pickups, and the Custom 54 set is designed to be more vintage toned... You could likely take the bridge pickup from the Custom 54 set and use it as the neck pickup in the Texas Special set, and it would sound completely normal.

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Life is good when you love your tone.

And what strat pickup are you talking about that you put in the neck? They do make several.

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

It from a Mexican Standard Stratocaster SSS.

Thats odd because the neck and bridge pickup in the MIM standard are the same pickups. There Fender part# 53206000

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The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

Thomas Jefferson

Well, not that odd really, I'm just pleased with the sound. I'll be equally pleased with the other pickup in that case.

Tell me, why have the got different colour leads then? (Neck- black & yellow, Bridge - black & white.)

Often they use different color leads on 1 type vs. the other. My Vintage noiseless are like that - 2 white & black, 1 yellow and black (the bridge). They also have a different part number.

I can't compare with those on my MIM 'cause that was an HSS.

Yellow and black (or white) leads, as opposed to white and black leads, can mean one of two things depending on which pickups you are talking about.

With the noiseless pickups, the yellow is used to identify the bridge pickup, not because it is wound any hotter (because it isn't) but because the pole spread is wider. Vintage Fender pickups never did this and the result was that the angle of the bridge pickup caused the poles to not line-up with the strings directly over them. Fender decided to fix this "problem" with the noiseless pups.

With the Mexican Standard Strat pups, the yellow lead should be indicating the middle pickup (NOT the bridge pup) because it is RWRP (reverse wound, reverse polarity.) To be sure of this, put a compass above it and it should point opposite to the other two pickups.


Fender Noiseless pickup sets all have the same DC resistance and each pickup in the set sounds the same. Same with the MIM Standard pickups.

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Life is good when you love your tone.

Excellent info - thanks!

Wow, so simple but true, the 2 outer make compasss point opposite way to the middle.
All, SSS & HSS assembly follow this rule but there is no consistency
(i.e outer pulling north and middle puling south or vice versa).
My SSS is opposite in polarities to the Fat Strat - HSS,
The Mex Pups I got on Ebay are opposite in polarity to my import SSS assembly.

So it looks like I simply fluked it.

I think you've just discovered what guitarist out there have already known. Pickups are interchangable. Most Bridge pickups are hotter, which is why many people choose identical PU's for the neck and bridge....