Abby Pickups price guide

Strat54

I ended up with four 'limited edition' sets that came in a box numbered and signed by Abby and Mike Eldred.....the least I sold them for was £600, one set went for £700. Shocking. 
https://medias.audiofanzine.com/images/normal/fender-custom-shop-custom-69-strat-pickups-873020.jpg

guitars4you

@strat54 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^  - are those the version based on a '65' era with the bright copper wire

meant to be highly desirable and based on the black Strat Hendrix used a lot from circa 65 and maybe SRV Lenny

Strat54

guitars4you said:

@strat54 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^  - are those the version based on a '65' era with the bright copper wire

meant to be highly desirable and based on the black Strat Hendrix used a lot from circa 65 and maybe SRV Lenny

Yes, I think they are meant to be '65 Hendrix specs. Bought a load of these up when they came out. I kept one set and sold the other four after she retired and bought a CS Strat with the profitable proceeds. A friend of mine still has a few sets in his safe.Its amazing just how much kudos her name has, they all sold abroad too.

Octafish

Strat54 said:

guitars4you said:

@strat54 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^  - are those the version based on a '65' era with the bright copper wire

meant to be highly desirable and based on the black Strat Hendrix used a lot from circa 65 and maybe SRV Lenny

Yes, I think they are meant to be '65 Hendrix specs. Bought a load of these up when they came out. I kept one set and sold the other four after she retired and bought a CS Strat with the profitable proceeds. A friend of mine still has a few sets in his safe.Its amazing just how much kudos her name has, they all sold abroad too.

Have you tried the pair you kept? Would be interesting to know how they compare to ther Fender pickups. Do they sound £450 better than the standard Fender CS 65 pickups?

Strat54

Octafish said:

Strat54 said:

guitars4you

@strat54 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^  - are those the version based on a '65' era with the bright copper wire

meant to be highly desirable and based on the black Strat Hendrix used a lot from circa 65 and maybe SRV Lenny

Yes, I think they are meant to be '65 Hendrix specs. Bought a load of these up when they came out. I kept one set and sold the other four after she retired and bought a CS Strat with the profitable proceeds. A friend of mine still has a few sets in his safe.Its amazing just how much kudos her name has, they all sold abroad too.

Have you tried the pair you kept? Would be interesting to know how they compare to ther Fender pickups. Do they sound £450 better than the standard Fender CS 65 pickups?

Oh Lord no I can't try them....that would devalue them! Actually my friend fitted a set to his CS Strat and A/B'd them with those regular AY 69 Custom Shop  pickups and there were not any better...nor any worse. At the time I had a real '65 Strat which blew them all away.....but maybe that was the wood....or the wire...or both....lol. I'm afraid I'm in the belief that the Abby thing is just a polite myth. Nice lady though. 

Octafish

Strat54 said:

Octafish said:

Strat54 said:

guitars4you

@strat54 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^  - are those the version based on a '65' era with the bright copper wire

meant to be highly desirable and based on the black Strat Hendrix used a lot from circa 65 and maybe SRV Lenny

Yes, I think they are meant to be '65 Hendrix specs. Bought a load of these up when they came out. I kept one set and sold the other four after she retired and bought a CS Strat with the profitable proceeds. A friend of mine still has a few sets in his safe.Its amazing just how much kudos her name has, they all sold abroad too.

Have you tried the pair you kept? Would be interesting to know how they compare to ther Fender pickups. Do they sound £450 better than the standard Fender CS 65 pickups?

Oh Lord no I can't try them....that would devalue them! Actually my friend fitted a set to his CS Strat and A/B'd them with those regular AY 69 Custom Shop  pickups and there were not any better...nor any worse. At the time I had a real '65 Strat which blew them all away.....but maybe that was the wood....or the wire...or both....lol. I'm afraid I'm in the belief that the Abby thing is just a polite myth. Nice lady though. 

That's what I guessed and I bet those AY CS 69 pickups sound no different to non AY 69s. Amazing how much people will pay for some bullshit.

What gets me about pickups is how many people I've spoken to who've left their guitar with a tech/luthier for a few days or week to have the pickups upgraded, then when they get it back claim how much better the pickups sound. When aksed if they made before/after recordings to compare, they usually say "no, but you can just tell". I've tried quite a few pickups over the years and everytime I've changed them myself and done a before/after recordings and it's amazing how little difference there is between supposedly significantly different pickups.

Gagaryn

I suppose if you are looking to maintain resale value AY is a sensible choice - they will probably sound fine and you'll always get yer money back later on.

JezWynd

Octafish said:

it's amazing how little difference there is between supposedly significantly different pickups.

I've thought this is probably the case for several years but wondered if maybe I just had cloth ears. The pu's that shipped with the Classic 50's Tele were widely derided, something about the bridge pu not having a metal base but having now a Classic 50's with upgraded pu's I fail to hear anything extra that an eq pedal/booster couldn't acheive. Fender were smart when they turned their workers into stars.

cutch14

guitars4you said:

cutch14 said:

guitars4you said:

are they signed 'abby' or signed 'AB' - 

'abby' are wound personally by her and these are the more desirable version
'ab' are wound by other staff under Abby's watchful eye - almost like an apprenticeship

They are the signed ‘abby’ version.

those are the 'chosen' ones o Lord

They don’t sound particularly chosen but if people want to part with crazy money for bright copper wire and a fairytale about an elderly lady it would be rude of me to stop them.

thermionic

JezWynd said:

Octafish said:

it's amazing how little difference there is between supposedly significantly different pickups.

I've thought this is probably the case for several years but wondered if maybe I just had cloth ears. The pu's that shipped with the Classic 50's Tele were widely derided, something about the bridge pu not having a metal base but having now a Classic 50's with upgraded pu's I fail to hear anything extra that an eq pedal/booster couldn't acheive. Fender were smart when they turned their workers into stars.

After I bought a Classic 50s Tele, I kept reading about the ‘52 RI pickups. Apparently they were extremely “50s Tele” so I eventually relented and bought a pair. Disappointed that there wasn’t more of a difference really. So I started reading about Custom Shop Nocasters... the most “50s Tele” pickups physically possible. That’s what I needed! So I bought a used pair on ebay. Again, not really much of a difference.

My take on this is, the stock pickups in Classic Series Strats and Tele are pretty damn good.

cutch14

guitars4you said:

@strat54 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^  - are those the version based on a '65' era with the bright copper wire

meant to be highly desirable and based on the black Strat Hendrix used a lot from circa 65 and maybe SRV Lenny

Is the bright copper wire a definite way to indentify the pickups as based on the ‘65 era?

jon

Sorry for a long wait for the answer i just came across this thread and because I love 'abbys pickup winds' I thought I wound  answer this old question. - No the bright copper wire is not a way to indentify the pickups based on the 65 era. Thw wire used on her 65 wind is Formvar wire which was used prior to 65 in real 1965 vintage Fender pickups then changed over to Plain enamel which is a darker wire in 1965.  The 1965 Abby winds have two anomalies they are handwound (which in 65 when cbs took over they were all machine wound and Abbys 65s have Formvar wire which they orginally did not. However what is right was the change over to the grey bottom bobbins. So historically they are not accurate but they sound lovely!  (I have an abby signed pickups that should be wound with Formvar wire (because its got a black bobbin) but its wound with Plain enamel! To my ears this one does sound like a true 65, while abbys grey bottoms sound more like 69s to these ears! With all the sets i have had of hers she experimented with vintage recipe to suit her tastes and the results to these ears were fantastic! 

rossi

They are the Holy Grail of Fender pickups ...a pot of bollox.

rossi

prlgmnr said:

meltedbuzzbox said:

StuartMac290 said:

I was offered £600 for a set of Custom 65s hand wound by her, but they are very rare pickups

Rare or not I would have sold them at that. 
You can buy a car for £600

You can't play Little Wing on a car

I cant play it on a guitar .Who recorded it ?

thegummy

Chalky said:

The problem is - what do they sound like? 50s, 60s, high output, low output, middy, glassy?  Without the spec she wound to, its pot luck for the buyer.

I don't think the buyer of those will have any reality-based expectations for the sound.