This item is a commission sale. If you have a high end guitar or other musical equipment you are interested in selling, please contact us.
 
Here for sale we have a Fender Wide Range humbucking pickup, made in the original run available from 1971-'79. Fender's Wide Range pickup was released in 1971, having been designed by Seth Lover, who was responsible for Gibson's PAF humbuckers in the '50s. Lover had jumped ship to Fender by '67, and was the perfect man for the job when Fender were looking to break their reputation as the 'single-coil company' and gain a foothold in the Gibson-dominated humbucker market. 
 
Whilst aiming to develop a new humbucker sound, Fender and Lover also intended to retain the integrity of the established designs from their single-coil pickups, whilst also producing a sound that was distinct from the Gibson humbucker. To this end, the Wide Range humbucker makes use of 6 magnetised pole pieces rather than the bar magnet and screw arrangement of the Gibson PAF. Due to the difficulty of machining AlNiCo (Aluminium/Nickel/Cobalt) into threaded rod magnets, Fender chose to use CuNiFe magnets (Copper/Nickel/Iron) instead. As they produce less output than AlNiCo magnets, more windings were needed to produce enough output- resulting in a much larger enclosure than a typical humbucker. 
 
The Wide Range humbucker was installed as standard in Telecaster Thinline, Deluxe & Custom models, as well as the Starcaster throughout the seventies, before eventually being discontinued with the guitars around 1979. In the subsequent years, CuNiFe magnets have become obsolete in all other industries, meaning production has entirely ceased. Even Fender's reissues of the pickup use AlNiCo magnets voiced and disguised to look and sound like the originals. This has increased demand for the originals due to their scarcity. 
 
This item is a commission sale. If you have a high end guitar or other musical equipment you are interested in selling, please contact us.
 
Please be aware that for international buyers import fees are not included in our postage and packaging cost, this only covers the cost of the guitar being sent to you. Import fees will be charged by Customs upon the guitar's arrival in the recipient country. Due to Brexit, this also applies to EU buyers. We advise checking the total import cost with Customs as this is not information we are able to accurately provide.