Butyrate bobbin shoot out--Bang!

[Possum]

....

I think Seymour's haircut philosophy is the same as mine, if it gets too long clip off the ends, period. No barber just 3 minutes with wife and scissors.

[frankfalbo]

FYI I spoke to Seymour this morning, he's not backing that "proto". I won't say more than that, but as for writing on the back, you can see the one pic says "Rear" and it's hard to tell but the other probably says "Front", so I'm not sure where anyone's seeing that Seth Lover signed those pickups. Do you guys mean to just say that's his handwriting?

[automan]

Not trying to rerail this thread, but I got in 2 burstbuckers in the shop to rewind yesterday. The bobbin cores have the slug/screw cylinders connected by thin tabs. it used Plain Enamel wire, a maple spacer, the magnet is only ground along the edges that touch the keeper and spacer. The keeper has 10 holes. The magnet average 650 gauss but on 2 corners (diagonal from each other) registers 900 gauss.

[greenfingers]

FYI I spoke to Seymour this morning, he's not backing that "proto". I won't say more than that, but as for writing on the back, you can see the one pic says "Rear" and it's hard to tell but the other probably says "Front", so I'm not sure where anyone's seeing that Seth Lover signed those pickups. Do you guys mean to just say that's his handwriting?

This is what the guy selling the guitar with those pickups in said,

Description: In a personal interview that Seymour Duncan conducted with Seth Lover a number of years ago, Mr Lover referred to a Gibson ES-350 as being the first ever guitar to be fitted with humbucking pickups. I believe this is that very guitar. This instrument has been owned by the same person for the last 20 years and is unaltered in anyway. The guitar dates to 1955 and it has a set of humbuckers that are totally unique and in my estimation were handmade by Seth Lover himself and are marked 'front' and 'rear' in Mr Lover's own hand. These humbucking pickups pre-date the PAF humbuckers introduced by Gibson in 1957 and make this possibly one of the most impotant historical finds in recent years. Serious enquiries only.

1955 Gibson ES-350 with Prototype Seth Lover Pickups > Guitars : Electric Semi-Hollow Body | Gbase.com

This is that interview i think.


SWD: What were the first instruments if you can recall that the humbucker was used on? Would it be the solid body or acoustic?

Seth Lover: As I recall, I could be wrong, but I think it was the ES-350. It was not the thin one. It was the full sized body, as I recall, and then shortly after we put it on the Les Paul solid body. They still had the other early style, I guess, the ES 125 with the cream cover (dog ear P-90) that was fit down in the body. And they had that on some because people liked that particular style of pickup. And then we added--the ES 335--that was a thin model

[frankfalbo]

Thanks Greenfingers. Maybe I'll show him the link and text. It was a casual conversation in which I showed him the pics up on the projector on the wall in our meeting room. I don't mean to over-or understate anything Seymour said, but it didn't seem "right" to him, mainly based on the way the tops of the bobbins were cut. He couldn't see anyone at Gibson from that era (no matter how loosely prototyped these were) making jagged cuts and causing raucous file marks like that. Remember they were building guitars, right? They had nice tools.

But to be clear this was not an in-depth study, or a definitive assertion, just me showing him the pics and his initial response. I believe it was like "sure it's possible, but..." Also he had to leave the meeting early to attend Fess Parker's funeral. Maybe next week I'll revisit...

[greenfingers]

Your welcome Frank.

Does anyone else think the baseplate looks like a old P-13?

[David Schwab]

This is that interview i think.

Yes, that is the interview.

Here's the whole thing, including photos.

Interview by: Seymour W. Duncan (SWD), 6-13-78.
(This interview transcribed from audio tape.)
Location: Garden Grove, California-at the residents of Seth E. Lover - Inventor of the Gibson “Patent Applied For” Humbucking pickups.

Seth Lover interview 1978 vintage gibson PAF humbucking humbucker pickups guitars

[David Schwab]

Your welcome Frank.

Does anyone else think the baseplate looks like a old P-13?

Yes. I said it looked like P-90 parts, but a P-13 is even closer.

[Possum]

....

What supports them being real is those are P90 bobbins cut down. We've also seen photos on this forum of rough cut P90 bobbins, probably used metal shears or something, obviously hand cut. Several members have also seen hand cut bobbins on other stuff, there are probably still photos of some of this in the archives I bet. Really, who else would have made such a thing except as purposeful counterfeits based on that story alone.

[JGundry]

What supports them not being real is the scribe lines for the pole piece centers. They would not be needed for cut down P-90 bobbins. I think they were added to make it look like a prototype. Same with the jagged bobbins. Jagged all around the edges yet the butt up against each other perfectly? Why scribe some parts and not others. It would actually be easier to scribe the entire thing and cut and sand it to the scribe lines. It does not add up.

I still want an explanation for the extra 4 mounting ring screw holes on the neck cavity?

[Possum]

haircut....

I vote no for the haircut idea......too scary...
"let your freak flag fly...."

[Possum]

...

David I don't think this stuff is celluloid, the bottom of it is real thick, all of it is much thicker than pickguard material. A google search only brings up Chinese suppliers, doesn't seem to be made here anymore. Nylon, you might be right on there. Sure looks like it. What was bindings made of back then, guitar bindings are used on the edges of the tops.....

[David Schwab]

I still want an explanation for the extra 4 mounting ring screw holes on the neck cavity?

A few reasons could be:

• they had to move the pickup mounting ring
• they had a different mounting ring or a different pickup on it
• a mistake
• it had modern humbuckers on it, either before (time travel?) or after the prototypes*

You should see what some of my instruments that I use for prototype pickups look like!

*Of course I was being facetious about the time travel. It could be an indication that the prototypes were not the original pickups, which could mean that's not the original guitar that had those pickups. That doesn't mean the pickups are fake, but the fact that it's supposed to be the guitar might be. Of course that was never stated, just that the pickups were prototypes.

Also I'm sure they didn't build a guitar to stick those pickups on, so what kind of pickups would have been on that guitar originally and what holes would be left behind?

We wont know until someone who does says so.

[David Schwab]

David I don't think this stuff is celluloid, the bottom of it is real thick, all of it is much thicker than pickguard material. A google search only brings up Chinese suppliers, doesn't seem to be made here anymore. Nylon, you might be right on there. Sure looks like it. What was bindings made of back then, guitar bindings are used on the edges of the tops.....

Nylon was the big thing back then. It was developed at the start of WWII for parachutes so they wouldn't have to use Asian silk and hemp.

And of course nylon stockings became very popular.

That's very cool that you have those pickup parts. That a crazy looking magnet under that one version.

[Possum]

...

Jon, the guitars Gibson used for experimentation weren't top shelf guitars from the retail batches. The '62 Patent I own, I asked the guy extensive questions about it before I bought it. He owned a Gibson test guitar and thats where mine came from. It never had a decal and was right off the line. The guitar had all kinds of extra holes and had something like 7 different finishes on it, and ended up as a test guitar in the Gibson Lab amplifier factory. A friend of his bought it and restored it to new condition and filled all the holes etc. I imagine that guitar in the photo was tested with other stuff in its life and would also explain why the pickups are scuffed up, they may have have been in and out of that guitar several times even.

David I don't own those pickups, I collect photos of cool pickups off Ebay, though recently they try to protect photos so you can't copy them, there are ways around that though. I do own the one in the first post on the CC's, its similar but rounded top and two small blue cobalt steel (?) magnets underneath with that split blade. Does anyone know what material the binding on Gibson guitars was made of in the 40's-50's era? Maybe its the same material and there are also CC pickups made in that same beige color....
I sure don't use a top of the line guitar for doing hundreds of pickup swaps either, you end up stripping out mounting holes and getting solder splats etc.....no reason why Gibson would use a high end retail guitar to test stuff out either.