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Hardass blues
January 24th, 2009, 08:51 AM
:rockon::dude:

I have recently went through my parts box. I have stuff from when I was a kid still. In the process I found a Gibson pickup. The number is stamped on the plate, just that number no other indications at all,no cover, never was as far as I can tell. The only thing that looks odd to me is that there are screw heads on all of the pole pieces. Is this normal? I think it came out of a late 70's early 80's v I had for a while and had put emg's in it. It was a stock v before that with I believe. Any info on this pickup would help. I did scan then net but only saw examples of the regular screws on one side style. Thanks,John H.

WackyT
January 24th, 2009, 09:16 AM
Here's some info.

Vintage Guitars Info's
Gibson PAF (Patent Applied For) Humbucker Pickup Info. (http://www.provide.net/~cfh/paf.html)


PAF History.
I guess we should start with a little history of the Gibson PAF pickup. By the mid-1950s, Gibson wanted to counter the latest electric guitars introduced by Fender. Leo Fender had built a company that was a sizable competitor in the solid-body guitar market place. Gibson believed they could beat Fender with their high quality Les Paul, and by developing a low-noise pickup.

The problem with Gibson's P-90 and Fender's single-coil pickups was inherent in their designs, allowing 60-cycle hum (noise) to interfer with the sound. Seth Lover was the Gibson engineer assigned to solve the problem. Seth connected two single coil pickups in series (opposed to parallel) and connected the coils out-of-phase electrically and magnetically. Thus the signal noise of each separate coil canceled out the noise of the other coil. That is how the pickup came to be known as a "humbucker".

Seth/Gibson filed their patent for the pickup design on June 22, 1955. Gibson added the new pickups to steel guitars in 1956, and in 1957 on electric solid-body and arch-top guitars including the Les Paul Model. During late 1957, a small black decal with gold lettering was added to the underside of the pickup that read, "PATENT APPLIED FOR" (hence the PAF abbreviation).

Seth Lover received his pickup patent #2,896,491 on July 28, 1959. By mid to late 1962, Gibson changed the pickup decal to read, "PATENT NO 2,737,842". Interestingly the patent number listed on the decal was not for Seth's pickup design but was for Les Paul's trapeze tailpiece! Perhaps this was a research roadblock for the competition, or maybe just a mistake?

mrmudcat
January 24th, 2009, 09:41 PM
It is a late 70's early 80'S dirty fingers(gibson) pickup. It has all pole pieces adjustable. Have you tested it and if its working are ya selling it.(I would buy if working .I have 2 x 84 explorers with these.They are about a $100 used .They also have reproduced these at about $90-100 a pup also.They dont sound as good!!!!

Hardass blues
January 25th, 2009, 07:54 PM
It is a late 70's early 80'S dirty fingers(gibson) pickup. It has all pole pieces adjustable. Have you tested it and if its working are ya selling it.(I would buy if working .I have 2 x 84 explorers with these.They are about a $100 used .They also have reproduced these at about $90-100 a pup also.They dont sound as good!!!!

Yeah ,I found a few old pics and you are correct. Haven't tested it yet. I have a couple of guitars I'm working on now and may swap it in to see how it sounds. Pays off to save old parts. Thanks again,J.H.