Tele bridge pickups varied greatly in their first few years of production with changes to windings, magnets and wire guage. Here I have cherry picked some of those classic variations and recreated them from original specs.
'49
Based on the first pickups seen in early Broadcasters, this is a woody sounding, mid-focused bridge pickup. With more winds of thinner wire than in a convensional Tele bridge pickup, it is a hot pickup with a softer attack and a tamed top end response.
Blackguard
Hand-wound with 42AWG Plain Enamel Wire around Alnico iii polepieces this is a recreation of that classic early 50s 'Blackguard' sound. Twangy with a focused mid-range that will cut through any mix and push the front end of a tube amp into rich saturated overdrive sounds.
Whiteguard
Bright, jangly & clear. This classic mid-'50s pickup has 42AWG wire hand-wound around staggered Alnico v polepieces. With a zingy top end and a solidly defined bottom end, the Alnico v brings an aggressiveness that more than makes up for the slightly reduced wind count.
Hand-wound Tele bridge pickups
Made in the same way as the original 1950s pickups, the unwound vulcanised fiberboard bobbins are first dipped in nitrocellulose lacquer and left to dry for 72 hours. They are then handwound to original specs with plain enamel wire around the correct height magnets, 22 guage cloth-covered hookup wire is added and the finished coil is wound with string. A zinc or copper plated baseplate is then added and the whole thing is then lightly potted in a mix of paraffin wax and natural beeswax.
'49 Specs
Polepieces - Alnico iii
Wire guage - 43AWG
Impedence - 10k
Baseplate - Zinc plated steel
Blackguard Specs
Polepieces - Alnico iii
Wire guage - 42AWG
Impedence - 7.4k
Baseplate - Zinc plated steel
Whiteguard Specs
Polepieces - Alnico v
Wire guage - 42AWG
Impedence - 7.1k
Baseplate - Copper plated steel