novosel,
.... I have 5 old stock Tokais, 79'-82' that had the wrong pots. As guitarboy said it is likely a supplier error, but my guess is there are a lot of early Tokais out there with wrong pots. That's why I posted. Ironically, that's probably why I got the guitars I did. A breezy sound tele with a 1 Meg pot sounds dreadful. Sounds stupendous now.
In my opinion pots do affect tone significantly. To illustrate, set your amp clean, set guitar volume on 10, turn pot down a few notches and listen and you will hear the high end disappear. The only factor changed is that as you turn the pot down, you lessen resistance to ground. Lower resistance = less high end and gain. So if your pot doesn't have as much resistance as it should, your losing high end even with the guitar on full. I'ts as if your guitar volume only goes up to five. Conversely, higher resistance =more high end and gain. That's the Breezy sound story. The difference pots make isn't as noticeable as going from a 5.8k vintage pickup to a 12k overwound one, but it is significant.
I've measured many vintage Fender pots and all were significantly less than 250K. This undoubtedly, along with many other factors, contributes to vintage tone. The effect of pot values is more apparent on single coil pickups as they are more nuanced and subtle.
