Gibson Pickups

Personally I prefer Gibson guitars, because I really liked typical of the sound produced from the pickup. and there are some explanations from a source about the Gibson Pickups

The Gibson P90 pickup is a single coil pickup Gibson first used around 1948 and was replaced as their flagship pickup around 1957 by the invention of the humbucker. The p90 for me has that mid rage bite, that crunch with tone that is impossible to get with a humbucker. Think of leslie West , Steve Marriott , early Carlos Santana , early Pete Townsend , Johhny Thunders . Ian Hunter and a host of others and you will get the picture. Many complain of the hum or the fact that the pickup itself is noisy at loud volumes but that is a part of its character. Gibson used the p90 all throughout the history of the company even to this day. slight changers were made over the years for example in 1961 the coil leads changed form double black to White and black leads. the magnets changed form long magnets to short magnets and by the late 1960;’s the pickups themselves were a slightly different size . For example a 1950 ‘s p90 pickup cover will not fit on a 1968 p90 . By 1970 the black plastic bobbins were replaced with clear bobbins and the pickups were wound a bit hotter.

In 1957 Gibson offered a humbucker pickup. This pickup a double coil model bucked the hum and the pickup was a much quitter one yet had a tremendous tone and power. These had not been approved for a patent so on the bottoms of the pickup had a decal with the phrase “patent applied for ” or PAF as they are know was applied. These to many are the holy grail pickups. These are the ones that are found in the les Paul flametops and goldtops form 1957-1960 that are some of the most sought after guitars in the world. During its evolution it changed slightly as the magnets became shorter and wire was changed but in general from the outside they looked the same.

In 1962 the patent was approved and a pat sticker was applied. the pickups in many peoples minds changed but actually the first run of the pat pickups are the same pickups with a different decal. By 1963 the pickup looked the same but a few differences as white and black lead coil wire and different wire used to wind pickups.Again this is just a brief outline more details can be supplied later. By 1967 the pickups had T markings on the top coils and that is why they are know as T-tops. They still has the pat  decal on back . These continued until around 1973 were in Gibson again changed a few features but this is were we will end the summary.

Source : thepartsdrawer.com