'60s T-Bird pickup vital statistics

[Daniel_J]

So the '60s is a single coil?

[Barklessdog]

Not that I am aware of?

[godofthunder]

Pretty sure they are.

[Dave W]

I have never seen one apart, Bill Lawrence told me they were blade magnet humbuckers.

Take a look at the excerpt from Gibson's 1966 price list on this page from Jules' site.



OTOH, the Blue Book of Electric Guitars says they are single coils.

Anyone else seen the innards?

[godofthunder]

The one I had apart was in the 80's, no solder joints on the backing plate, it was thin wide and flat and looked with a single blade, a awful lot like a Gibson pedal/lap steel pickup. The only way I would know what a Gibson pedal/lap steel pup looks like is that they had piles of them at the House of Guitars when I worked there in the 70's and 80's. This is what I remember seeing, looks like a charlie christian pup.

[Pekka]

Here's some Firebird pickup discussion:
http://www.lespaulforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=142738

And the the thread my friend (who built the bass) did for me:


Includes a pic of a pickup built by David Schwab.

[OldManC]

I didn't read the links yet but I seem to remember talk of the original bird pickup being modeled after the Charlie Christian pickup (whether that just means it was a blade pickup, I do not know). I wouldn't be surprised if it started out as a single coil in '63 and they changed it out for a humbucker at some point. Gibson has never been known to have perfect paperwork regarding their model histories. Even literature for their current models has been known to be wrong over the years.

[Dave W]

The 60s Firebirds in that discussion are humbuckers.

The Charlie Christian pickup is a metal blade with two big magnets below, but lying perpendicular to the pickup body, sticking way out.  See pic in this discussion. The Firebird and Thunderbird pickups were never anything like the Charlie Christian.

It's possible that they started out as single coils and then were changed, but I really doubt that. Gibson was trying to phase out single coils except on their budget models.

[godofthunder]

I think I need to fire up my soldering iron.

[Barklessdog]

When I had my 60's repro built for my Fenderbird by Lindy Fralin. I remember him saying they were humbuckers with blade magnets that can't be found anymore, but can be simulated.

Why have such fat covers for single coils?

[godofthunder]

As i remember seeing it it was a wide flat single coil, 60's pickup cover are very thin not like the '76s which are thick.

[MikeyB5]

This it what it should look like.

[godofthunder]

Cool not what I saw though.  The one I saw was out of a 60's NR. It would not surprise me that Gibson just made up whatever to stick in the NRs. Wish i had a picture of the one I had apart.

[Dave W]

Mike Lull and Jason Lollar make 60s T-Bird pickups based on their analyses of originals, and they're humbuckers. Bill Lawrence told me they were blade magnet humbuckers. Lindy Fralin and Seymour Duncan think they are too. So I think we can be sure that some of them are humbuckers. I've never heard of anyone mentioning single coil 60hz hum on a 60s T-Bird.

OTOH if you can find an example of a single coil 60s T-Bird, it would not amaze me. You never know with Gibson.

[Dave W]

Small world department: I'm sure some of you remember MPU (Marko Ursin) from the old Pit. That's who will be building the pickups for Pekka. I saw a thread Marko started at the Pickup Makers Forum.

And oddly enough, that thread linked to an earlier thread (on that forum) where someone had copied some of the info John (Barklessdog) had compiled from my conversation with Bill Lawrence.