Help identifying strings

[St_G]

I just bought a (used) Gretsch G5123B which the previous owner strung with flats -- which is what I would have put on there myself anyway, so yay -- but the previous owner doesn't know what kind of strings they are.

They're, I would guess, .055-.110 flats with green silk at both ends. Pretty high tension, especially given the fact that they're on a medium-scale (32") instrument.

To my ears, they seem to fall less on the thumpy side of things, with much more growl than I normally associate with flats.

Any ideas?

[Coltrane21]

Could they be Fender 9050M? Those strings came stock on my MIM Fender Fretless Jazz. .55 - .105, with green silk. Just a guess..

[St_G]

That seems plausible. In that video comparison of flats that someone posted here, the Fender strings definitely sounded to be on the brighter side of the equation. I could see how that, with the hollow body of the Gretsch and the Thunder'trons, could add up to the growl that I'm hearing.

If they're Fender, I definitely like them better on this bass than on the P-bass in that vid.

[St_G]

So, this is kinda embarassing, but I just this weekend happened to notice that the ball ends of the strings are multi-colored.

So I guess they're Chromes, despite the fact that all the Chromes I've seen have had dark blue silk on them.

[FourBanger]

Without the right color silk they are probably not Chromes.

D'Addarios aren't the only ones that might have colored ball ends, some of the brands they make (or supposedly make) strings for have them as well, as the way they package strings in one bag makes some form of string ID helpful, ergo colored ball ends.

Fender flats have the green silk, and most people agree it is probably D'Addario making Fender strings now, so as soon as someone verifies Fender Flats have colored ball ends that will be your answer.

[joelb79]

They are Fenders. Ball colors should be an aqua-blue instead of green, but colored balls and green wraps are certainly Fender flats. D'addario uses a blue silk, and a like I said a greener colored ball for the G string instead of the aqua-blue-green (called Sea Foam) that Fender has on the G.