"50M" pots.. ???

John Bushouse · Posted 28 Feb 2012 10:34 pm

I'm getting ready to replace the electronics on one of my 1947 Fender Deluxes. I just had the pickup rewound so I figured I would restore the other parts to their original specs.

The volume and tone pots are marked "50M" for a value, and each measures out at 55k or so. The pots on my other Deluxe are 1 Meg pots. Anyone have any idea what the "50M" means? Anyone know if anything other than a 1 Meg pot was used?

G Strout · From: Carabelle, Florida

John, I ran into the same problem when I rewired my old Magnatone. They guys at the Valco forum explained to me that 50M was the old way of writing 50K.
As to what pot values Fender used in the Deluxe I could not venture a guess...
gary

Peter Jacobs · From: Northern Virginia

I've run into this when dealing with buying printing services -- "M" is Latin for 1000, "K" is Greek. Printers traditionally use "K" (for kilo). Looks like at least one brand of pot manufacturer used M instead of K.
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Karl Fehrenbach · From: Pennsylvania, USA

I had a similar situation when I got an old Rickenbacher Silver Hawaiian back into service. The original pots were also labelled in "M" and were made by a venerable old company in my home town of St. Marys, PA, Stackpole Carbon Company. As the pots were unusable due to decades of neglect they had to be replaced. I asked my electrical engineer uncle about this and he told me the entire story of how pots were labelled as "M" in the early days of electrical components, and now more commonly as "K". Modern component substitution was easy and the lapsteel sings as it should and is good for another 70 years. My grandkids will be the next to have to worry about it.

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