three

The black oblong is a coil - effectively an inactive pickup between the two low impedance pickups. It's there to eliminate hum (it works). You'll see this on most SI and SII instruments, though it can be embedde under a full-face laminate (I believe)

Steviebee - very lovely indeed! I particularly like the tort guard. Frozen bridges aside (a minor irritation and an easy fix) I'm getting more convinced these are superb basses. The relicing is frighteningly good but Limelights are brilliant players with very authentic tone. I've never been able to get the action down so low on a Fender as I can on the Limelight J. Stunning value

My saddles too came from eBay - about a tenner and very nicely done. The bridge is a small gripe as the bass is phenomenal overall - I'll write a full review when I have a chance but for now, I'd say that if you were thinking of buying a relic, Limelight are for me, the highest quality and best value by far.

Geek99 - apologies, I should have been more specific re: the tort - it has a fairly authentic red celluloid look but I was referring primarily to the relicing - it's excellent and the faked 'crack' behind a screw is very cute. Re: the frozen bridge, it was perhaps over-reliced and the process (oxidisation) had interfered with function. One intonation screw and six of the saddle screws were entirely frozen - various solvents/lubricants/techniques failed to free them. Mark politely acknowledged the problem and is likely to offer advice/guidance in the future. I replaced all intonation screws and saddles - the latter with inexpensive but good brass barrels. The barrels are not threaded but its not an issue for me - the bass plays beautifully

I was fully ready to replace the pickups in my '61 J but to my astonishment, the stock pickups are genuinely excellent - very close to an early '60s but higher output than most. The tort plate is extremely clever (though replaced by an even more beautiful Spitfire). Mark does an excellent job - only gripe is a frozen bridge - I've now replaced the saddles with really nice brass units and the action/intonation is better than any Fender I've played or owned (and that's a lot!)

Just bought a bass from Discreet in really friendly and easy transaction. Superb packaging and Mark did everything he said he would. The only down-side was a Parcelforce failure. This was not Mark's fault and he did all he could to sort it out.