FENDER PICKUPS LIBRARY

Fender has made pickups since the 50´s. but did not sell them individually until early 90s. If you are not fuzzy about boutique pickups, Fender's own does the job well.
Keep in mind that there are also hand-wound Custom Shop versions of some of these available. They are usually made for Custom Shop guitars and any on sale on Ebay or elsewhere are 90% certain taken from CS guitars. The remaining 10% comes from Fender direct as they sometimes issue out a limited amount of Custom Shop pickup for sale on their website. CS version usually have gold marker date & signature + an COA and they have a hefty price tag.

- Pure Vintage series are aiming for period correctness. similar bobbin, wire, magnets etc as the original pickups. Made in Ensenada Mexico
- Custom Shop series are machine wound in USA. Aiming to bring some of the hand-wound CS spec models for world wide retail at lower cost.
- The Standard series are machine wound in Ensenada. A mix of both full price and budget friendly pickups, and comes in various bobbin and wire materials.
- Noiseless: Fender used Lace Sensors back in the day. They eventually developed their own line and introduced the first model for sale in 1998
- Handwound Limited Retail: A small selection of Custom Shop handwound pickups that was released for sale in limited amount.

When looking for pickups, Inductance is equally important as ohm readings on a pickup. Higher inductance means heavier string pull. Also factor in magnets used in pickups. When you sum Ohm+Henry+Magnet together they give you a good indication to how vintage or how hot they will be. But not necessarily how they will sound. What type of wire wound has also a small affect for the sound of them. They are either Enamel or Formvar wire or the newer Polysol coated wires.

Magnets: Alnico 2: Second weakest - Alnico 3: weakest - Alnico 4: second strongest - Alnico 5: Strongest