Fender Stratocaster - Reissue Strat Pickups

Reissue Strat Red Bottom Pickups

The earliest reissue strats had red bottom pickups with 1982 date stamps and thin plastic wiring.  These pickups are very rare and were only used on the very first reissues from 1982.  These red bottom pickups are typically present on guitars with serial number below V003000 or so, but I have seen a few guitars with serial numbers as high as V008000 with red bottom pickups.  An early 1982 reissue can either have red, grey, or black bottom pickups, with black being the most common.  Finding a 1982 Fender Reissue with red bottom pickups is a real find.  I have made a point to get my hands on as many red bottom pickup reissues as I can, as original examples are exceedingly rare.  Guitars that feature these rare red bottom pickups command a premium over their standard black pickup counterparts.

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  1982 red bottom pickup with plastic wiring
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  1982 red bottom pickup set from '62 RI
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  1982 red bottom pickup set
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  1982 red bottom pickups
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  1982 red bottom pickups from '57 RI
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  1982 red bottom pickups from '57 RI
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  Red bottom pickups plastic ground wire
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  Red bottom pickups staggered pole pieces

Reissue Strat Grey Bottom Pickups

A few early 1982 reissues also had gray bottom pickups with 1982 date stamps and thin plastic wiring.  These gray bottom pickups are even rarer than the red bottom pickups.  I have only come across a handful of early reissue strats that have these grey bottom pickups. If you own a 1982 reissue with these grey bottom pickups consider yourself lucky!

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  1982 grey bottom pickup
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  1982 grey bottom pick set on '62 RI

Reissue Strat Black Bottom Pickups

The most common type of pickups that were used were black bottom pickups with cloth covered wiring.  All of the pickups used on early reissue strats had staggered pole pieces with flat tops to the pole magnets.  It was not until 1998 that the pole pieces had beveled edges.

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  1982 '62 reissue with black bottom pickups
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  1989 '62 reissue with black bottom pickups
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  Black bottom pickup cloth ground wire
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  Beveled pole pieces found after 1998