Is it Real... or is it NOT...(Saturday's Post)

I am seeing a large amount of 1950's Tele pickups for sale on EBay... listed as "Apparently Rewound, but doesn't look rewound at all"... or a similar statement. This is not the first time I have heard about this... the ability of some pickup rewinders to actually do such a good job, it is almost impossible to tell the difference in HOW THEY LOOK. They go by names like "Johnny" apparently.. and become famous under these monikers.... for their ability to rewind a pickup and make it look like one from the 50's or 60's that is supposedly untouched. But as we all know (from our guitar reading), changing the number of winds can drastically change the sound (as Fender discovered a long time ago). Before winding a pickup, the unit is sprayed with clear-coat (as an insulator). Then the windings go on, and finally a 'secret' wax process (from the Fender book's term) is used as a final step. Combine the output of these 'master pickup forgers' with the Masterbuilder's ability to almost completely mimic an original '56 Tele (for instance), and what are we looking at? I know, I can still tell the difference fairly easily between an original '56 paintjob, and a 'relic' job, but every year they get better... but I can't tell a perfectly rewound pickup! (And apparently neither can these dealers selling them on EBay). What can I recommend? Well, one outfit I know of can detect (or has the best ability out there to detect) a rewound pickup of this type... the Vintage Room in Hollywood. I can say this, because I am familiar with them, and have known them for some years. I know Gruhn could also probably detect one of these pickups, but I haven't had any experience dealing with them yet! And all this doesn't mean they might not sound great... or even better sometimes, than the original...it's just nice not to be fooled, since the original untouched pickups cost much more.