play it until the paint falls off, then play it harder bro.
if everything is the way you say, you got your money worth.
now turn it up until the cops show up to make sure shes good and broken in.

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63supro
"The good thing is in a club situation, most of the patrons are trashed and really can't tell the difference."

Hmm - the pickups don't look like the ones that came on the CS '69 NOS that I had a while back. Here is the only photo I have of the back of the pickguard on it - as I mentioned a while back the pickups in this one had beveled polepieces and they have black backs.

Here is the back of the pickguard:



Here is the front - if you blow up the photo you can see the beveled polepieces:



I no longer have this Strat; sorry, these are the best photos I could find.

John C, why did your CS 69 have blackbottom pickups? Real 69s had grey bottoms and the CS69s are grey bottoms like the OPs. Also they shouldn't be beveled. Those look almost like 57/62s

That was my impression as well.

I have a set of CS '69s in my 12-string Strat -- they're definitely gray bobbins.

Arjay

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"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY

Good question - the guitar was a 2006 that I got used in a trade from the original purchaser - he had the original receipt from his dealer in Canada and had photos similar to mine that he put up after he got the guitar. When I sold the guitar I had this photo up in a gallery that showed it with the pickguard removed (showing the routing and the body stamp), etc. No one ever questioned the pickups so I assumed they were the right ones; the original owner claimed he never did anything but install the 5-way on that one.

I verified the guitar with Fender - at lest that it was a white CS '69 with that serial number shipped to that dealer in 2006. There was no mention of different pickups, but you never know what a dealer could order. Since you have real aftermarket CS '69 pickups then I stand corrected and the OP does have a set of CS '69s.

@ john c

thanks for the research etc
seems we both learned something
and it seems I got what I was told I was getting
all the sweeter

@ everyone

it seems, in summmary ..

American Deluxe maple neck
American Deluxe relic body with contoured neck heel
Custom Shop 69 pickups in an 'aged' pickguard
all custom built
cost = £350 ($550 approx)

I'm smiling

I'll hopefully get some vids recorded and put on my Youtube channel [ www.youtube.com/user/MrClose2u ] so you can hear how she sounds

cheers

These posts got me thinking - I had this guitar about a year ago and wound up doing a lot of research on it before I sold it. Someone had pointed out that the guitar also has the wrong pickguard screw pattern. I had forgotten that I had an email from the original dealer. The guitar I had was a dealer one-off that had the pickup assembly from a '60 NOS instead of an assembly from a '69 NOS from the factory and a 60-style thinskin finish on the body.

Sorry for causing the OP confusion and I'm glad his guitar has the CS '69s as advertised; I only had that CS '69 Strat for about a month (got it in a trade and then sent it out on a trade) and had forgotten my own pre-sale research.