Gibson Pat. No. Pickups - if it's no Shaw and T-Top, what's it?

[Squealer]

Hey Guys,

 

i read quiet a lot about the Gibson pickups with the Pat. No. 2737843 stamped on it. I bought a 1997 Les Paul custom in aged white and wanted to know what pickups are in it because it sounded kind of good ;)

So i took them out and realized that there is one of those Pat. No. Pcikups on the neck. The bridge Pickup seems to be usual 490T, though it has 13,7k and a single conductor braided wire...kind of strange, but will swap this one with a wolfetone.

 

So i removed the cover of the Pat.No. pickup and saw that there's NO T on top of them, so it's no T-top. There isn't even any number inked over the stamped Pat. No. on the bottom of the pickup. And if i measured it the right way, to pickup seems to have 8,2k. Seems a little high to me. But i don't think it's an bridge model because it sounds warm but has enough clarity.

 

So i just want to know if this is no tim shaw and no t-top, what's it instead?! All threads i read ended up with people having T-Tops or Tim Shaws after removing the cover. But not this time. So if anybody knows MORE about these pickups i'd be very glad to know what i got here!

[Nitrodave08]

I googled patent 2,737,842 and wiki came up with

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PAF_(pickup)

 

"After about 1967, the original PAF design changed. These pickups are referred to as "Pre-T-tops". Gibson began to stamp the patent number on some PAF stickers after they obtained a patent (U.S. Patent 2,896,491) for the PAF pickups. Most humbuckers were labelled with U.S. Patent 2,737,842 until 1962 and the number shown on the pickups, which actually is a patent for a Gibson trapeze tailpiece bridge and not for a pickup at all. Both true PAFs and incorrect patent marked PAFs are fairly rare today and make an expensive vintage collectors item."

[cjsinla]

Hey Guys,

 

i read quiet a lot about the Gibson pickups with the Pat. No. 2737843 stamped on it. I bought a 1997 Les Paul custom in aged white and wanted to know what pickups are in it because it sounded kind of good ;)

So i took them out and realized that there is one of those Pat. No. Pcikups on the neck. The bridge Pickup seems to be usual 490T, though it has 13,7k and a single conductor braided wire...kind of strange, but will swap this one with a wolfetone.

 

So i removed the cover of the Pat.No. pickup and saw that there's NO T on top of them, so it's no T-top. There isn't even any number inked over the stamped Pat. No. on the bottom of the pickup. And if i measured it the right way, to pickup seems to have 8,2k. Seems a little high to me. But i don't think it's an bridge model because it sounds warm but has enough clarity.

 

So i just want to know if this is no tim shaw and no t-top, what's it instead?! All threads i read ended up with people having T-Tops or Tim Shaws after removing the cover. But not this time. So if anybody knows MORE about these pickups i'd be very glad to know what i got here!

 

T-tops were all but gone by the time of the Shaw pickups in the early '80's and I don't believe Shaws were made after the late '80's. The Shaws commonly had the ink stamp that you mentioned but they were not the only pups with ink stamps. I have seen pics of pups with those textured bobbins and big screws on the bottom but I'm not sure what they are. The pup you have that measures at 13.7k is probably a ceramic pup, not sure what model. Also, most of the Gibson pups I've seen have that pat number on the bottom including Shaws and T-tops.

[cjsinla]

I googled patent 2,737,842 and wiki came up with

 

http://en.wikipedia....iki/PAF_(pickup)

 

"After about 1967, the original PAF design changed. These pickups are referred to as "Pre-T-tops". Gibson began to stamp the patent number on some PAF stickers after they obtained a patent (U.S. Patent 2,896,491) for the PAF pickups. Most humbuckers were labelled with U.S. Patent 2,737,842 until 1962 and the number shown on the pickups, which actually is a patent for a Gibson trapeze tailpiece bridge and not for a pickup at all. Both true PAFs and incorrect patent marked PAFs are fairly rare today and make an expensive vintage collectors item."

 

The above quote does not seem right to me. PAF's had the PAF sticker from about 1957 until around 1962 and the sticker was then changed from Patent Applied For to a sticker with the Pat number on it. Not sure when they started stamping the number into the base plate.

[mab]

This is an extremely late additional question to add, but did anyone come to a conclusion about this? I have a 1985 LP Studio and have pickups that look the same with the stamp instead of sticker. The bridge has something inked over it as well. Some details are on another discussion:

 

[jdrans]

On 2/17/2021 at 2:49 PM, mab said:

This is an extremely late additional question to add, but did anyone come to a conclusion about this? I have a 1985 LP Studio and have pickups that look the same with the stamp instead of sticker. The bridge has something inked over it as well. Some details are on another discussion:

 

haha if you ever found out let me know, I have a 1987 LP Custom with (at least one) of those. Because I was a child and didn't know what I was doing I replaced one with a DiMarzio Super Distortion because, well, super distortion. Just wondering if it's worth putting the original back on.