[Guest]

I have an '85 SG special (custom shop).
I ordered it with top hardware (at the time),
it came with paf's. I've seen paf's where the
sticker is printed in block letters and pasted
on the underside of the pup. Mine, however,
is in script and stuck on the pup ring. A local
guit' shop tech thinks that Gibson did this to
keep lowlifes from transfering these to the
back of aftermarket paf's and selling them
as original '57's. Any opinions or clarifications
would be greatly appreciated.

ciao fer now.

 

[dwagar]

well, there are the original 'real' Patent Applied For pickups that were made from, I think, '57 to about '62(?). These are the big $ pickups.

Then there were numerous variations that they called PAF, both to describe what type of tone they were going for and, I think, for marketing. A good example is the current '57 Classics with the PAF sticker on the back.

Scratching my head here, I am wondering if yours are Shaws, have you pulled one out? See if there is a series number on the back.

Shaws are generally considered very good pickups I believe.

 

[Guest]

got ser.# 2,737,842 stamped on the back, so yes
they're paf's. found this page with paf info;
http://www.provide.net/~cfh/paf.html
tnx for your input dwagar
BTW nice sounding collection you got there.

 

[dwagar]

What I'm trying to explain, if you think you have real PAFs, well, sorry.

If you read that page closely, you'll see that real PAFs weren't made after '62.

Patent Applied For was before they had the Patent Number, which were stickered on the early pickups (starting about '62), stamped later. The 2,737,842 number is the Patent Number.

(oddly, it's actually the patent number of their trapese tailpiece I think. For some reason Gibson always used the wrong patent number)

In the '80s, with those pickup rings that have Patent Applied For on them, I think you might have Shaws. Is there a 6 digit code ink stamped on the back of the pickup? like a 137xxx ?

Lots of pickups have PAF stickers or are referred to as PAF pickups. Gibsons own '57 Classics and Burstbuckers (I believe) all have PAF stickers. Other manufacturers use the term too. Stickering or describing them as PAFs can lead to confusion, as I said before, they do it to describe the tone they are shooting for, and I think, as a marketing gimmick. But it doesn't make any of them a real PAF pickup.

 

[path09en]

Paf

I checked mine out and they are stamped 2,737,842 on the underside of the pickup. They're on my 1985 Les Paul Standard. Hmmm...could be an '85 thing?

I'm not sure if they're Shaw's, the gent I bought the guitar off claims that they are slightly over wound '57 Classics, but they sound way better and warmer than just a '57 Classic?!? Could be Shaw's?, could be exact PAF replicas?, who knows...all I know is that they sound great!

Just my 2 cents...

Cheers!

 

[dwagar]

doing a little research on the Les Paul Forum, I found this re Shaws:

Quote
The guitars loaded with them had stickers. Mine were gold foil with black knock-out printing for the letters to be gold. they were on the rings of a custom shop guitar that had gold hardware.

and he went on to say that he'd heard of, but never seen, replacement Shaw's that had the sticker on the back of the pickup.

So yes, both the guitars in question appear to have Shaws.

From what I've found, Gibson put Tim Shaw on the job of doing the real first re-issue of a PAF type pickup. He tried to get the magnets as close as possible, but they wouldn't let him use the original wire type. They are all fairly low resistance, under 8.

Although some guys don't like Shaws, many do, and the prices on these seem to have soared. I've seen them sell for $100, and as high as $300.

One guy commented that, in his opinion, the only PAF reissue that is better than a Shaw is a Timbucker.

So you guys probably have great pickups in there. Congrats!

 

[Guest]

I know alot more now then I did before.
Thank you guys for the input. Gotta
love this forum. Saved me hours of
googling. And yea..they do sound sweet.

 

[path09en]

I checked mine out and they are stamped 2,737,842 on the underside of the pickup. They're on my 1985 Les Paul Standard. Hmmm...could be an '85 thing?

I'm not sure if they're Shaw's, the gent I bought the guitar off claims that they are slightly over wound '57 Classics, but they sound way better and warmer than just a '57 Classic?!? Could be Shaw's?, could be exact PAF replicas?, who knows...all I know is that they sound great!

Just my 2 cents...

Cheers!

Here's the under side of the pickup. I read some threads in the Les Paul Forum as well and I guess they are "Shaw's"!?! Cool! I didn't even know I had them!

 

[dwagar]

Yeah, I see you can just make out part of the extra stamp that is usually on Shaws.

nice!

 

[GTmaker]

for a great look at some nice "real" PAF's, check out this '61 Gibson ES355 TD

I was in the store when the owner came in with the guitar and they had a close look at those pickups.

Very interesting ...hmmmm

http://www.folkwaymusic.com/instruments/electric.html