Fake pickups in my '91 LP Custom?

[snorruk]

I recently bought a Gibson les paul custom from ’91.

Last week somebody told my the pickups in this guitar aren’t the original ones.

 

*Both pickups says pat. No. 2.737.842

I’ve been told this patent number should be on a sticker. Only the cheaper models got this etched into the metal.

 

*The pickup covers also got a little piece cut out of it. I’ve indicated this with the red arrow.

I’ve been told original Gibson covers don’t have that.

 

*Last week one of the pickups have been waxed. The guys was quite surprised since this was the first LP Custom pickup that needed wax. Maybe this pickup comes from an Epiphone?

 

Can somebody confirm these facts?

I’m still able to return the guitar at this point to the store…

 

Thx,

 

Snorruk

[ne14t?]

I dont think its a knock off pick up, except for the fact that the patent number refers to it as a tailpiece!! That I will never get over especially since they have left it like that for oh so many years. This sounds like a PAF style pickup made WAY after the Patent Applied For sticker were no longer used. The following link probably has the most information you will ever need in regards to the Gibson PAF.

 

http://home.provide.net/~cfh/paf.html

[stein]

Not sure why someone told you they were not the origional pickups, but the reasons you have stated actually point to them being not only genuine gibson pickups, but the correct pickups for that guitar.

 

Gibson pickups did use that patent # stamped on the back of the pickups, but the cheaper pickups like epiphones and such do not. That is a Gibson thing. As for the # being on a sticker rather than stamped, they had a sticker on pickups made until about '62 or so, then they stamped them. Pickups with stamps were still being used on Gibsons well after that, but no where near as late as 1991.

 

As far as Gibson making REPRODUCTION pickups which were meant to be like the older ones, I am not hip to exactly what they were doing in 1991, but I don't think the were that hip to it yet, and not to a point where they would be using stickered patent numbers or taking care to reproduce what the bottom of the pickup LOOKED like.

 

My guess is that those pickups were standard Gibson pickups as opposed to the fancy ones they started to come up with, and I'm also going to guess they problably sound better and worth more on thier own as pickups than what you are being told is "supposed" to be in there.

[marvar]

they look real enough, but those oversized, non-brass screws that hold the coils on the plate has aroused my suspicion.

It does appear to have wooden spacers, but, that really means nothing-

Another thing, all my Gibson pickups have only one row of holes on the baseplate, no holes under the slug coil.

In the pics the solder 'glob' that holds the covers on appears to be a bit more messy then I seen on most Gibsons.

What kind of resistance do they read?

[Kineman Karma]

The question I would be asking is if the 91 LPC came originally spec'd with copper shielding in the pickup cavity. If not well then someone has been playing around.

 

Do the solder joins on the pots look original.

 

This would give me a sign that maybe the pups were swapped out when these things were done, if so?