Why did some old fender telecasters have an out of phase sound when the switch was held in between the #1 and #2 position of the 3-way switch?

Last Updated on October 16th, 2019

All the old Telecaster lead and rhythm pickups I’ve seen have been wound top left, top coming in other words the coil was wound counter-clockwise around the bobbin. When measuring the magnet polarity at the top of the lead and rhythm pickup, I have seen them both South or North. Eventually they both became standard South on top. When the switch was placed in the non-standard 2nd position, one pickup had a South polarity and the other had a North polarity which made them magnetically out of phase since they were both wound in the same direction. This didn’t always happen in the non-standard 2nd position but on some instruments it did.

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