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Post subject: Which pick-ups are in my MIM Tele?
Posted: Sun Jan 17, 2010 4:45 pm
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Hi Guys,

I have a left handed Made in Mexico Telecaster which I love.

I've been playing for longer than I care to remember and have had quite a few guitars along the way - incl. a few vintage Fenders plus some Gibsons and even a few custom made ones where the pickups alone cost more than I paid for the MIM Tele which came in at a whopping £315 brand spanking new some time in the beginning of the millenium - bargain! :D

And in all honesty the MIM Tele is the guitar I feel most at home playing - sound wise and feel wise. I even like the generally much loathed 6-saddle bridge :oops:

In fact I've been so happy with it that I bought another one as a back-up (sadly being left handed you can't always borrow one when you need it).

I bought the back-up Tele second hand and the guy who owned it previously had replaced the pickups - much to my annoyance as I really like the almost Les Paul like crunchy grunt they have on chords when overdriven.

I have been trying to find out how to get hold of a set of pickups identical to the original ones and have found out that apparently it varies with the age of the guitar what was put in there - and also whether they're alnico or ceramic.

Are any of you guys in the know in here able to tell me what would have been fitted in a l/h MIM tele with the serial number MZ1 168354 - and possible where I should look for a set of identical pickups? For instance do Fender sell them seperately?

Thanks a lot for your help. I really appreciate it.

PR.


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Post subject: Re: Which pick-ups are in my MIM Tele?
Posted: Sun Jan 17, 2010 4:55 pm
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Preben Raunsbjerg wrote:
Hi Guys,

I have a left handed Made in Mexico Telecaster which I love.

I've been playing for longer than I care to remember and have had quite a few guitars along the way - incl. a few vintage Fenders plus some Gibsons and even a few custom made ones where the pickups alone cost more than I paid for the MIM Tele which came in at a whopping £315 brand spanking new some time in the beginning of the millenium - bargain! :D

And in all honesty the MIM Tele is the guitar I feel most at home playing - sound wise and feel wise. I even like the generally much loathed 6-saddle bridge :oops:

In fact I've been so happy with it that I bought another one as a back-up (sadly being left handed you can't always borrow one when you need it).

I bought the back-up Tele second hand and the guy who owned it previously had replaced the pickups - much to my annoyance as I really like the almost Les Paul like crunchy grunt they have on chords when overdriven.

I have been trying to find out how to get hold of a set of pickups identical to the original ones and have found out that apparently it varies with the age of the guitar what was put in there - and also whether they're alnico or ceramic.

Are any of you guys in the know in here able to tell me what would have been fitted in a l/h MIM tele with the serial number MZ1 168354 - and possible where I should look for a set of identical pickups? For instance do Fender sell them seperately?

Thanks a lot for your help. I really appreciate it.

PR.


Welcome.

Based on your serial number, that would have come stock with ceramic magnets.

I've never seen Fender selling OEM ceramic MIM pickups separately however, I'm sure you'd be able to find a set on e-Bay with a bit of patience.

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Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2010 3:05 am
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Thanks a lot for that.

Do you know if there is anything in particular that makes these pickups visually recognisable?

Also do you know if the pickups fitted on all recent (post Alnico) MIM Teles are more or less the same?


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Posted: Mon Jan 18, 2010 5:38 am
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Preben Raunsbjerg wrote:
Thanks a lot for that.

Do you know if there is anything in particular that makes these pickups visually recognisable?

Also do you know if the pickups fitted on all recent (post Alnico) MIM Teles are more or less the same?


You're quite welcome.

They will have bar magnets glued to the bottom of their steel pole pieces at the bottom of the pickup.

The ceramic magnet design for the MIMs were never modified so the year of manufacture means nothing.

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Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2010 9:58 am
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You know what really kicks is to keep your ceramic neck pickup and get a GFS hot overwound bridge pickup. A ceramic neck pickup is the only thing I've found to come close to matching the output of one of those bridge pickups.

That combo sounds fantastic! :wink:

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Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2010 11:47 am
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Mike: Thanks for the advice. But I think I'll stick with what I've got in it now - otherwise I'll be going on yet another VERY slippery $@!&# of a/b-testing and NO real work getting done... Sadly, I know myself only too well :oops:

Martian: would that bar underneath the magnet look like a sort of brass-coloured flat plate?


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Posted: Thu Jan 21, 2010 11:55 am
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Preben Raunsbjerg wrote:
...Martian: would that bar underneath the magnet look like a sort of brass-coloured flat plate?


No. That is for the purpose of altering the magnetic field of a pickup thereby making it stronger while at the same time, increasing the middle and lower frequencies of the pickup. It was essentially unique to Telecasters whose bridge pickups have Alnico II or Alnico III magnets for polepieces but now it is finding its way onto the bottom of other model pickups too, especially Strats with Alnico II or Alnico III magnets for polepieces.

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Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 4:35 am
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I must admit I'm slightly confused but since I had to change my strings anyway today, I though I'd end the confusion by posting a few pics here.

Are we any wiser looking at these?

Image

Image

Image

Image


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Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 5:49 am
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Preben Raunsbjerg wrote:
I must admit I'm slightly confused but since I had to change my strings anyway today, I though I'd end the confusion by posting a few pics here.

Are we any wiser looking at these?


As a matter of fact, yes. Those are Alnico magnet polepieces, not ceramic, nor do you have that plate to alter the magnetic field on the bottom of your bridge pickup.

Apparently you have a Tele with a special run of Alnico magnet pickups otherwise, at least the bridge pickup is not the original. To the best of my recollection, Alnicos didn't start coming stock until 2006.

I commonly do see these Alnico sets for sale on many a forum and on e-Bay.

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Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 6:50 am
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Well, I'm almost certain it must be some Fender anomaly then because I bought the guitar brand new and it came right out of the Fender cardboard box. In fact I selected it from 4 MIM teles (and an American Standard) which were all boxed and new so I wouldn't have thought any modifications would have been made to it. I myself have changed the bridge and filddled about with the switching system but that's all.

So it should be pretty straight forward to find a set of pickups like these on e-bay you say? What should I look for? MIM Telecaster Alnico pickups - and is there's then only one it can be?

Thanks again for your assistance. I feel we're nearing the end of my seemingly endless lines of questions :D


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Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 7:07 am
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Preben Raunsbjerg wrote:
Well, I'm almost certain it must be some Fender anomaly then because I bought the guitar brand new and it came right out of the Fender cardboard box. In fact I selected it from 4 MIM teles (and an American Standard) which were all boxed and new so I wouldn't have thought any modifications would have been made to it. I myself have changed the bridge and filddled about with the switching system but that's all.

So it should be pretty straight forward to find a set of pickups like these on e-bay you say? What should I look for? MIM Telecaster Alnico pickups - and is there's then only one it can be?

Thanks again for your assistance. I feel we're nearing the end of my seemingly endless lines of questions :D


Yes, MIM Telecaster Alnico magnet pickups or some such wording. As long as they don't have a big grayish bar glued to the bottom of them which is the ceramic magnet or to put it another way, as long as you can see the polepieces from the bottom of the pickup with nothing else attached to or around them other than them being inside the base of the pickup itself, you know they are Alnico polepieces. See, with a ceramic magnet, the polepieces are simply steel and they have to have the ceramic magnet attached to them thereby creating the magnetic pull for the steel polepieces to pick up the strings.

I'm glad to help and if you have any more questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

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Posted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 7:33 am
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Excellent..!!

E-bay. here I come :lol:


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