Pickup Trivia: Cable Colors?

[LenMinNJ]

I see that on some late-80's and early 90's toaster-top pickups, some had black cables and some had gray.

Anyone know which years had gray and which had black, and what prompted Rickenbacker to change?

Did they use the same cables for the High Output and Humbuckers too?

[johnhall]

I can't say I recall any black cable but it's certainly possible, as this type of coax is a commodity item. There's specs for the size, capacitance, and type of shielding but nothing that says it has to be a particular color; it's out of view, after all! Still, most of it is gray, as that's what's commonly available.

The humbucker cable is different as it has four conductors plus shield, whereas the standard cable is single conductor coax.

[LenMinNJ]

Thanks, John.

I suppose some of us nitpickers will eventually figure out which years your production folks used the less common black cable.

I'm guessing that you don't really mean "coax" (which implies a controlled impedance using a specific dialectric insulation around the inner conductor), but rather plain shielded cable. Right?