[morzh]

Keith,

No bad advice; any measurement is a good measurement.

This said, if you have a resistance (the coil in this case) that gives you 5k, then if you disconnect things it will not get any smaller. Only larger. The initial resistance was 1.1k and then became 5k, so if you disconnect things they won't get it back to 1.1K.

It is still interesting how in the world this could happen. It is rare if at all possible that a coil (not a resistor but an actual wound coil) could develop not an open, not a few order of magnitude higher resistance, but a finite number just a few times large than the original. Theoretically....the soldering joint of the lead wire to the magnet wire getting really bad but still conducting or carbonized......never saw that though.

Good sign is, if it is the case, it is repairable without having to rewind the coil, just open the paper and inspect the wire. Unless it is the inner wire and is not accessible. But let's hope for the best.