How can you tell if it's real PE or fake

[Dr. Guitar]

I'm quoting from a different thread, since this might hijack the previous thread.

What is the give away?

Here are some shots of Gibson winding pickups. They are supposed to be winding custom shop pickups here which would mean Burst Buckers. Also notice the color of the fake plain enamel wire that they now use. Tinted to look like plain enamel but really poly. I think Burst Buckers are the only Gibson pickups that get this color of wire but maybe I'm wrong on that one.

On a side note does anyone know who makes the Gibson Plain enamel color wire? Gibson used to use real plain enamel wire of the same color a few years ago. I have seen the same spools and same color wire on Seymour's Leesona 102. I don't think it is MWS wire.

[madialex]

That looks like the real deal to me....

[JGundry]

Gibson stopped using real PE about 2 years ago. I'm not sure of the exact date. The way you tell is you put a soldering iron to it and if it burns the insulation off it is poly. I have a Burst Bucker with and without real PE. They look exactly the same but one is poly and one is PE. The date of manufacture and ripping the pickup apart and putting a soldering iron to it are the only fool proof ways to know.

[Dr. Guitar]

so you can't tell by the pictures, they're a visual aide?

[JGundry]

This picture is from a video that I think was shot in 2005-2006 and if that is when it was shot then it is poly, I think . There was a former Gibson employee on the Les Paul forum that gave the year they changed over to poly. Try searching on the LPF for it. The main reason to show it was simply to show the color of the the wire which is the same for both PE and the PE colored poly that Gibson now uses. It is possible that this shot shows real PE, it just depends upon when it was shot.

[NightWinder]

Gibson stopped using real PE about 2 years ago. I'm not sure of the exact date. The way you tell is you put a soldering iron to it and if it burns the insulation off it is poly. I have a Burst Bucker with and without real PE. They look exactly the same but one is poly and one is PE. The date of manufacture and ripping the pickup apart and putting a soldering iron to it are the only fool proof ways to know.

Most of the Pe that is being used is the lighter color and most use this (not that there is nothing too wrongwith it, other than Size). The darker here is what the real deals all about : ) Still, It really matters on the I.d./O.d sizes- and the true Pe insulation ofcoarse....Been meaning to get this up, but been issues with the Camera

[David Schwab]

Here's a bobbin from a patent decal humbucker. I'm thinking it's from about '60-'61 or so? (when they became available as parts) The guitar it came from was a '54 gold top that someone had refinished brown (!) and and changed the P-90's to humbuckers.

The new owner had me refinish it natural and replaced the Gibson pickups with DiMarzio PAF's. This was about 1977 or so. I had the Gibson pickups in a parts box for years, and finally took them apart to use for experiments! This is all I have left because a box of parts was lost when we moved a few years back... including parts to one of my '74 Ric basses.

You have to remember that back then they were just used pickups. I wonder how much they would be worth now!

Anyway... note the color of the wire.

[NightWinder]

That looks like formvar? That looks like a dimarzio...Its waxed too?

[kevinT]

I was thinking the same thing.

[NightWinder]

I was thinking the same thing.

Look how the bobbin is not even full(not that that means much)...Hum

[Spence]

I would imagine it's been unwound somewhat. Or maybe it's been rewound but I couldn't say for sure it's Formvar if it is a rewind. It could just be poly. I can't recall seeing any that colour on a Gibson pickup.

David should enlighten us all.

[David Schwab]

It's not waxed... it's just beat to shit! I don't know what kind of wire it is. I had the set originally. What I ended up doing was taking the bobbins off the base plate, and stacking the two pickups on top of each other. I put it in a guitar of mine and had a switch to go from regular humbucker to one or the other stack. This was in about 1978 or so. The guitar also had an aluminum pickguard and active preamp with distortion. it started out as a Sekovia LP copy I had when I was about 13.

At some point I took it apart and reassembled one of them as a pickup. That and a 70's P-90 were in the old Sekovia LP copy that I no longer have. This bobbin actually has the space between the stud holes sawed out like a slot. I have no idea why I did that, but it must have been for something I was doing at the time.

Makes me want to cry now!

I might also be totally mistaken as to the origins of this particular bobbin.. it's been in my parts bin for so long. I'm pretty certain it's one of the gibson bobbins, but, hey, maybe not!

If everyone thinks it's formvar, that doesn't sound like a Gibson pickup... But I'm pretty sure that's what this is.

[kevinT]

Look how the bobbin is not even full(not that that means much)...Hum

If it's a PAF-style pickup with about 5000 to 5200 turns and wound on a machine with a tensioner it could look like that. Some of mine look similar (with a little more wire + tension) in terms of the size of the coil/bobbin ratio. However, that one does look like it was unwound a bit.