3-conductor with ground wiring? PRS TCI "S" Neck pickup

[gpdb]

I just purchased the PRS TCI "S" pickup set for testing, and I found something strange. While the bridge pickup has the normal 4 conductor wire plus a bare, the neck pickup is only 4 wires and no bare. I called PRS about this and the response was "that's correct, they were just designed that way." For the neck pickup, I seem to be getting "normal" readings by just pretending the bare wire doesn't exist. Has anyone had experience with a pickup like that, and is that how I should treat it? Just want to make sure I'm measuring correctly. See image below. The top pickup (bridge) has a thick white wire that has the bare inside it, but the bottom (neck) does not, just 4 wires.

[sumitagarwal]

This is an old thread now but my guess it that it goes along with the same reasoning as putting the split coil out of circuit instead of shunting to ground: they seem to be trying to keep as much out of the circuit as possible?

I'm curious and just ordered a pair of these too