Vintage Gibson P90 pickup?
- Thread starter Erwinn
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orangedrop
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I'm no expert. But I do own 3 of these beauties. It looks like a P90 from the 50-ies.
Someone did put in 2 ceramic magnets? And spacebars of maple?
If you remove these and install 2 alnico V – you’ll probably end up with a great P90
Someone did put in 2 ceramic magnets? And spacebars of maple?
If you remove these and install 2 alnico V – you’ll probably end up with a great P90
TM1
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Looking at these photos, I'm betting that 40 years ago someone installed an Alembic Hot Rod Kit in there. All those were was a pair of ceramic magnets and they did have some copper tape. Back in the day, if you installed a ceramic magnet into a stock T-Top humbucking, it would crank out some volume. the T-Top's came with either A-2's or A-5's that were hit or miss. They could be weak or real hot.
If that were my old P-90(most def a `60's version as there's a white & black coil leads. In the 50's they were both black. The white & black started in P-90's about the same time has humbucking's `62/`63-ish).
I would get a couple of alnico IV magnets from Jon @ ThroBak. The wood shims most likely were there as Gibson would shim them up on some guitars to get them closer to the strings.
If that were my old P-90(most def a `60's version as there's a white & black coil leads. In the 50's they were both black. The white & black started in P-90's about the same time has humbucking's `62/`63-ish).
I would get a couple of alnico IV magnets from Jon @ ThroBak. The wood shims most likely were there as Gibson would shim them up on some guitars to get them closer to the strings.
jwalker
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Not a Gibson bobbin. Flanges are too thick and baseplate mounting screw holes go through to top of bobbin which is not how Gibson bobbins were molded.
orangedrop
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Hmm, what is it then? P90 replica?
hogy
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I've seen lap steel "P-90" pickups with bobbins like that.
jwalker
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Gibson did not do white pigtail leads in the 50's. No dimples on baseplate either. Seems unlikely to be a 60's era Gibson pickup with that bobbin and baseplate.
TM1
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You Jon you're right(as always)! Looking at it closer, it has the thicker bobbin material. It looks to me, especially with that piece of tape/sticker on the bottom, that it's probably an early Seymour Duncan P-90. Seymour use to use little stickers on the bottoms so they'd know what version of what pickup it was. Seymour's P-90's(before his Antiquity's) where hotter than a stock Gibson. I think I had one once that was somewhere in the 11K d.c. range. Sounded awful too..
So most likely it's a Duncan "Hot" P-90 as some of Seymour's used ceramic magnets..
So most likely it's a Duncan "Hot" P-90 as some of Seymour's used ceramic magnets..