Pickups were probably the hardest choice for me, i wanted vintage with grunt but the prices or even the making of some of theses pickup left alot be desired until i stumbled upon "Sliders Vintage Classics" an Aussie guy in Sydney making handwound vintage pickups so i lined up a set on Ebay and won the bidding. Heres what Slider has to say about his pickups.

Slider's Classic Vintage 59's  are a matched set of handmade "scatterwound" single coil pickups

They are personally built, matched and  handwound on my winding machine right here in Sydney. All parts are imported from the USA and the highest quality, true to the original Fender pickups.

This set consists of 3 hand made Single Coil Pickups. Original 6/32 UNC adjustment screws with natural amber, vintage style rubber spacers. All matched to the 1958-59 Fender spec. This set matched and ready to install with  the magical high 5k Ohms averaged impedances for the fantastic Classic "Bell Tones"

North magnetic polarity, correct for factory pre c1960

Winding (Top Coming),  42 AWG single build enameled copper wire

Alnico 5 staggered height non beveled individual pole pieces, Low B, high D & G. All individually magnatized by me, using rare earth Neo-dymium Boride polarising magnets to recreate 50 year old Alnico. The word is that Fender would just order Alnico rods, rather that specify Alnico 2,3 or 5 and given it was the height of the Atomic age and the Cold War they were lucky to get any, given that cobalt, the co bit in alnico  was in high military demand. And given that magnets loose 2.1% of their power in the first 2 years and only 0.2 every 1000 years after that, its no biggy!

Vintage correct Black vulcanized fiber flatwork bobbins with brass wiring eyelets

Output wiring is 12" Black (ground) and 12" White  (Yellow for RW/RP ) active, 22 AWG celanese wrap and waxed braided, cotton outer insulation, vintage pushback wiring

This set has the following resistance, in kOhms on a Digitor meter at 21 Deg C on 3rd March 2008.

1/  5.78k

2/  5.69k RW/RP humcancelling in position 2/4 of a 5 way

3/ 5.77k

All are wax potted to reduce high volume microphonics and provide protection to the delicate windings.

 As vintage Fender pickups weren't taped or wrapped, so neither are mine!

All pickups come individually labled and signed with all specs relating to resistance in kOhms, Polarity and Composition. Information was correct at time of production and subject to vairiations due to test equipment, operator and environment. eg temp ( these will migrate higher as it was only 21 deg at readings)

These are not an "off the shelf" pickup and are intended for the discerning player or restorer of fine instruments.

Sliders Vintage Pickups

To my door
$224.50AU

Having quikly put the pickups in some routing holes for show, i need to get them mounted to a pickguard and wired correctly to some nice tone/volume pots a decent capacitor and some vintage wiring.

All parts for this guitar will be bought over the net and i have more parts on the way.

cheers

Tony