Did the very early ES-5's always have all gold hardware?

Hi,

I'm interested in a '49 blonde ES-5. The guitar seems to be all original, I've inspected her, but the P90's have nickel polepieces not gold (also checked the bottom of the pickups). Shouldn't an ES-5 always have all gold hardware, polepieces included? Or did they use both P90's (nickel and gold) on the very early ones? I've seen many more early ES-5's with nickel polepieces...or at least they seem to be in the pics. Does anyone know more about this topic? The guitar and pickups (and polepieces, soldering, wiring, pots) look all original to me. But, if any ES-5 should always have gold polepieces (because of the all gold hardware) things are a bit suspicious...

Is there really no one who can say something about this? Come on you guys!

58dutchie said:

Is there really no one who can say something about this? Come on you guys!

Click to expand...

Just saw this thread.
So, I opened a book and the answer is ... yes.

Gibson Electrics: The Classic Years by A. R. Duchossoir A fantastic reference book. :salude

I owned a sunburst '49. Gold.

So that would mean that an ES-5 with nickel polepieces is not 'ok'? I've seen some...and the '49 ES-5N I'm talking about sure has nickel polepieces (also checked the underside). They look absolutely original to me...strange. Also have the smaller earlier dogear covers. Why would you take three P90's with gold polepieces out of such a guitar and replace them by three period correct P90's with nickel polepieces? Even finding three correct pickups is hard I guess...very strange!