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What Year did Gibson Stop using their Patent No Pickups?

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Jul 15, 2001
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I've got a 1990 Custom, and the pickups have a Patent number stamped into the back of them. Did someone replace these, or Did Gibson Use them that long?
 

Big Al

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Apr 24, 2002
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A pat # stamped into the base means little by itself. It will not identify a pickup alone. YOM, coil forms and magnet as well as wire all help determine the pickup.
 
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But Was Gibson Using pickups like that in 1990? I was fully expecting to see the Familiar Gibson USA stamp, or Even the Circuit board back like Gibson used in that era.
 
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Here's a picture of it;

2003158099454901743231.jpg
 
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John Catto

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I'd say that's not only an earlier pickup, but, a construction. Those most certainly aren't the original screws so you may have a couple of coils and a base plate so to speak. How's it sound?? That's all that really matters. I would expect a 1990 guitar to have the circuit board pickups but they are so far away from being favorites of mine anyway that I don't think you're missing anything.
 
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John, thanks. What do you mean by "Construction"? Something that someone messed with? Not Gibson?

As Far as sound, the sound Really Good to me. I've had the circuit board type, and these sound a Lot better.
 
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Dana, Thanks! Since Mine is a '90, I would guess then, that this is the Pickup that Gibson was using before they went to the Circuit board type? If so, I think they should have stayed with them, Really good sounding pickups IMHO. I've been looking on ebay, and everywhere else I could find pics, trying to find some, and the closest I got, was an '87 Custom, that had that Baseplate, but it had the regular Normal Screws.

How do you like them in your guitar?
 

BrianGWN

Great 'Double White' North ~ Electronics Specialis
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I have also seen the PAT NO stamped pickup baseplates occurring as late as sometime around 1990, so those pups may legit. Apparently there was a fair amount of tweaking and change going on with the pickups in the early portion of the modern Gibson era, from 1986 through into the '90s.
As to those pups with the circuit board base (marked HB-R and HB-L, usually credited as being a Bill Lawrence influenced design), I thought they were from the later 1980s but I don't know just how late they were used.

Note how the pup in the pic has one of the details of the more modern "Gibson USA" impressed baseplates: They have holes for the two different versions of pole piece spacing. In the pic that pickup is using the regular spaced poles pieces while the wider spaced holes are unused (they would be used in a modern 498T or 500T). The pups in a 1990 Custom may have been some kind of early version of what became known as the 490R and 498T, I don't know exactly when Gibson adopted those model designations.
One thing that could help to ID the pups is to take a measurement of their resistance. With the volume controls full on use a multimeter to measure the resistance "looking back" into the guitar at the patch cord. The traditional HB pups would measure around 8 Kohms while the 498T would be a fair bit higher up at or over 13 Kohms.

...I just had a look at the pic Dana supplied and note how that pup used the holes for the _wider_ pole piece spacing, and that would make sense for a bridge position pup, so that pup would likely be something along the lines of the modern 490T/498T, well at least in terms of it having the slightly wider pole piece spacing compared to traditional...
 
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John Catto

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I have a very similar pickup (mid-late 80's??) that has "shaw" type PAF style coils on that baseplate that I think was developed for the "dirty fingers" pickups in the early 80's. It looks just like yours with the exception of those hardware store style screws you have there. They hint to me that perhaps someone assembled the pickup out of available coils and a baseplate perhaps. I think all would be revealed with the cover off, Gibson always have had a very particular way of putting these things together neatly.

pickup.jpg
 

BrianGWN

Great 'Double White' North ~ Electronics Specialis
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>I have a very similar pickup (mid-late 80's??) ... on that baseplate that I think was developed for the "dirty fingers" pickups...

Yeah I've got one of those baseplates handy, the one for the dirty finger pickup. However it is slightly different than the later version. The dirty finger had adjustable pole pieces in both coils so it had the twelve holes in the baseplate alright, but the spacing was the same for both sets of six holes, traditional spacing to have about 1 and 15/16 inches between the center of the outer E string pole pieces. That later PAT NO baseplate, maybe short lived, had the two different sets of pole pieces holes, one regular and one wider. This dual set of different spaced pole piece holes carried over into the most recent baseplates having the impressed "Gibson USA".

By the way, note the small square cutouts in the baseplate, on either side of the "leg" extending from the baseplate. I understand those four cutouts are another quirk that ID those PAT NO baseplates as being from the 1980s, not sure exactly when that started it could have been the late '70s.
 

ripfence

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Jul 25, 2002
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778
PAF:

I pulled threse out of my Custom '78 I think (it is a refin and the serial # is very faint now):

15715487-b870-023B01D2-.jpg


Are these the 3rd seriaes of PAF's? I am trying to make sense of what I read from the LPF article.

Also, why is all scratched up under the stickers? So they would stay on better? Thanks:


15715486-f5f3-0201018E-.jpg
 

Kris Ford

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Jan 6, 2007
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Ancient thread..came up on a search..I'm having a pickup dilemna..and have found a set of these for sale..$75! Just scored a '93 Studio that has Duncan Designed pickups..and that is unacceptable to me..(even though the neck PUP sounds pretty damn good actually..) This set would not sound bad..
 

Wolfman

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Dec 19, 2020
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Does anyone know the year Gibson started putting Gibson USA on the pickups? Just trying to find out when they started using those pickups! Thanks
 
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