The Gibson ES-335

Here’s a 57 PAF. No sticker (and no sign that there ever was one). Also note the bobbin screws (the four Phillips screws) are steel. They were brass later but went back and forth a few times so it’s not a very reliable method of dating.

I’m sure I’ve covered all of this before but I see so many errors in listings for Gibson guitars that I’m compelled to try to clarify this issue once and for all. Well, twice or three times for all. It’s about pickups. Since I deal in vintage, we’ll only cover Gibson humbuckers from 1957 until 1985. There are quite a few iterations in that time span. Everyone pretty much agrees what these different pickups are but a lot of folks don’t have the timeline right. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen a t-top listed as being from 1965. I know everybody chooses the earliest possible year when listing parts and entire guitars. Like when there is a re-used serial number seen in 65, 66, 68 and 69. It always seems to be listed as a 65, right? But we’re going to talk about the timeline for pickups only here. My facts are based completely on observation. I’ve owned over 600 Gibson guitars equipped with humbuckers and while the majority of them are from 58 to 64, I’ve gone through plenty of them from 66 to 82 so i think I have more credibility than most folks.

The very first Gibson humbucker was introduced in 1956. It had no sticker (decal), enamel coated 42 gauge copper windings and it had a stainless steel cover. These early PAFs (patent applied for) pickups were used on pedal steels (and had 8 string poles). Six string PAFs were being installed on electric Spanish guitars (ES) and Les Pauls by 1957. The early 57’s had no sticker and stainless steel covers. For reasons lost to history, they switched to nickel plated covers during 57-probably fairly early in the year since I see a lot more stickered PAFs in 57 than I do unstickered. Same goes for nickel covers vs stainless. These were long magnet (2.5″ usually A2, A3 or A4 although I can’t tell the difference). Some say A5 might have been used as well-like I said, I can’t tell the difference. There were also gold plated covers for the higher end guitars but the pickups were the same. There were no changes to PAFs in 58.

In 1959, there was an apparent shortage of black plastic-the type used in the bobbins and white was substituted. You’ll find PAFs with one black bobbin and one white bobbin-the slug coil is almost always the white one. We call these zebras. There are also “reverse” zebras where the screw coil is the white one. These are really rare-I’ve seen perhaps 8 of them in the last 30 years. Then there are double whites which, of course, have two white bobbins. Double black bobbins are the most common type in 1959 as well. It seems that certain guitars are more likely to have gotten the white bobbins than others. ES-355’s seem to have a higher percentage than other guitars. Les Paul Standards seem to have gotten them frequently as well but so many were swapped in because folks love the look of exposed double whites in a LP.

Ooh baby…a 1959 ES-335 with a pair of reverse zebras. This is the only one I’ve had with a pair of reverse zebras. And yes, I left the covers off. They were way too cool to hide. Let’s see, I’ve owned somewhere around 1500 PAFs over the last 30 years. Only 8 have been reverse zebras.

1960 also saw no changes to the PAF. There are still double whites and zebras to be found throughout 1960 but they get rarer as the year goes on. By late 60, they are just about gone. I did have a 61 355 with double whites though. The magnets are still long A2 and A3. The covers are still nickel or gold. The windings are still enamel coated 42 gauge copper. In 1961, Gibson switched from a 2.5″ A2, A3 or A4 magnet to a 2.35″ A5. The A5 is a stronger magnet so to keep the level of force the same, a shorter magnet was used. Long magnets seem to be more desirable but I’m not sure why. The short magnet PAFs are incredibly consistent and almost always great sounding pickups. I’ve had some not so great sounding PAFs over the years (not many) but I’ve never had a bad sounding short magnet PAF. I always tell people that the best sounding long magnet PAF will sound better (and better is a really subjective term) that the best short magnet PAF. But the average short magnet PAF will sound as good or better than an average long magnet PAF. I’m not totally certain exactly when the change occurred. It seems to be around mid 61. I don’t crack open sealed pickups to check the magnet so it’s largely guesswork.

Short PAF magnet and long PAF magnet. Shorts were usually A5. Long was usually A2

PAFs continued unchanged until the end of their run. The last PAFs seem to have been used up by 1965 (and these would be gold ones). I hear stories about PAFs found as late as 67 but I’ve never seen one past early 1965 (on an ES-355). That brings us to what is perhaps the biggest misunderstanding of all of them…the early patent number pickup. I’ll cover these and all those that followed in the next post.

Sunday, June 23rd, 2024 at 1:18 pm • Parts • RSS 2.0 feed • leave a response or trackback