Winding wire material for Duncan SPB3 (and clashing Enamel/Formvar info from other manufacturers)

(TL;DR: read the bold)

It's quite known from pictures (and stated in its description too) that the "vintage" SPB1 is wired with dark purple-looking plain enamel wire, which Duncan state as period correct. I have one too and can confirm it's plain enamel indeed - I guess the same applies for the Antiquity line.

Funnily enough, as much as I searched, I could not find any photo of the naked bobbin of a SPB2, 3 and 4 (Steve Harris) without the plastic covers on.

Can any owner or anyone who saw them confirm whether they are plain enamel too or wound with orange-ish formvar wire? I'm mostly curious about the SPB3, but any further info on their line is welcome.

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And now for the second part of the thread title, which is a never ending contradiction:
Aguilar produce their take of a 60s P pickup using (and I quote from their site) "period correct heavy Formvar wire", which looks quite obvious from the photos of their products. Fralin use said wire too, although they don't claim it being "period correct" - instead, they say they use "42-Gauge Heavy Formvar wire to give an era-authentic 50’s tone, only thicker".
S. Duncan described their SPB1 as "A completely faithful reproduction of Leo Fender's 1957 dual coil pickup design, the Seymour Duncan SPB-1 Vintage For P-Bass is a ingenious creation. Possessing the same hand-fabricated forbon bobbins, plain enamel wire and the same hand ground, sand-cast magnets."
I could go on with other producers doing vintage repros/takes with either one or the other material.

Now, there's endless speculation about the fact that the Duncan is after a late 50s rather than early 60s winding and so on. It's also known that back in those days Fender's specs were not 100% consistent and also subject to availability of materials, but AFAIK (and I might be wrong) Fender used Formvar and P. Enamel alternatively for Strats and other pickups, but stuck to Plain Enamel wire for all P bass pickups in the 50s,60s and possibly 70s. At least, I've never seen a vintage split-coil by Fender made with Formvar, in picture or real life.

When Aguilar (or other manufacturers) refer to their use of heavy Formvar as "period correct" for their 60s split-coil, are they referring to Fender's use of said wire in some of their pickups regardless of instrument and generalise or did they effectively come across some original vintage Fender split-coils wired as such? I guess that Fralin's proclaimed "thicker" quality of their pickup might be partially down to their choice of wire and thickness.

That's not to judge on the quality of Aguilar's products at all, which I generally highly regard. I'm not even doubting about the tone qualities of their 60s model, but this is one of those debates that nevertheless keep on popping up in forums, and my guess is that "period correct" refers to different things according to different people:
- correct according to what materials they were using in their products (which some might see as being a bit of a stretch)
- correct according to their actual production of a specific line, in this case the P bass pickup
- correct in terms of timbrical qualities, regardless of actual materials used. This might be Fralin's case and IMO can make a lot of sense, practically speaking.

What do you actually know/think about this?

 

All valid points so far, but I'd like to quote a couple of points I wrote before, just to avoid any potential misunderstandings or misinterpretation of my OP:

However, I am still very curious about what's beyond the plastic covers of the Duncans I mentioned in the first part

(... just wondering if the SPB3 might sound like a pre-cbs split-coil in case they use plain enamel, of course)

 

Never underestimate the power of plain enamel for a true quarter pounder with enlarged poles demagnetised by period-correct controlled aging.

 

I tend to agree with myself, but then we'd both be wrong.

 

Interesting, the plot thickens (unlike my humour in this thread)*

As rightly mentioned before, the main difference is anyway down to the insulation thickness -> diameter, thickness and spacing of the winding. And that's only one of all factors at play.

Going back to the first point of my OP, I'll reformulate the question:

Being it clear that I'm aware the SPB3 is NOT after vintage specs regardless of what wire they use, that the underestimation of esoteric magnets is gibberish I can come up on the fly to have a laugh and so on, does anyone know (or have a picture) of a Duncan coil without covers, besides the SPB1?

It's mainly out of curiosity and (overestimated) hunger for knowledge of components of pickups I don't have... you know, pure bass forum curiosity. Let's call it voyeurism if you want. Or coil porn, if you want to be less poetic.


*apologies for the lack of exclamation marks within brackets, I tend to find them rather prosaic and fun-spoiling in most cases... like a Big Bang Theory episode, I mean...