McCartney Used Tapewounds?

[lumgimfong]

Yes. CBS
I Been outta fender loop too long

[iiipopes]

And all this time I've been thinking he used "long shiny ones."

Yes, he did respond once with "the long shiny kind" when asked what strings he uses, and everybody understands it as saying he's not interested in the technical side. Well, I was fortunate enough to meet him and talk shop, and let me tell you, he knows exactly what he likes, and knows a lot about his Höfner and Ric. The way I understand it, by "the long, shiny kind" he simply meant, long scale flatwounds. The Höfner has a string afterlength, and standard short-scale strings (like a Fender set) are too short for it. It should be strung with either long or (preferably) medium scale strings. By the way, when I held the '63 Höfner (10 years ago) it had Pyramid flats (dark green silk) on it.

The best current set is the La Bella Beatle Bass flats set.