We’ve heard from many guitar builders and players alike, who wanted our Antiquity pickups with a new, pristine look, rather than an aged, vintage look.
So we created the Retrospec’d series. All the tone of yesteryear, in a brand new look. This humbucker set delivers the tone of the most elusive vintage PAF humbuckers.
DescriptionThe original boutique humbucker set makes your Les Paul look vintage and sound priceless.
The Antiquity neck humbucker delivers an articulate, yet mellow tone that results from a perfectly balanced frequency response that combines a soft, sweet treble attack with a warm, full sounding low-end. The custom aged alnico 2 bar magnet creates an airy openness to the top-end that gives chords clarity and articulation, while the vintage output coils really bring out the rich harmonic content. Single notes have a beautiful singing quality with just the right amount of treble emphasis.
The Antiquity bridge humbucker delivers that open, airy tone of the great PAF humbuckers that Seth Lover designed in 1955. High notes cut through without being overly bright, and low notes growl with spongy vintage warmth. We wind the bridge model a little hotter for better balance and added warmth, and, as with the neck model, we use the same custom hand-aging process to create an authentic vintage look and sound.
Each Antiquity humbucker is built in our Custom Shop. The mold we use for our butyrate bobbins was created by the same factory that built the original PAF mold for Gibson. Other key features include our specially manufactured 42AWG plain enamel mag-wire, nickel silver cover, 2.5-inch alnico 2 bar magnet, custom machined metal spacer & maple spacer, single conductor push-back braided lead wire, and nickel silver bottom plate with long mounting legs. Staying true to the original Gibson PAF, these humbuckers are not wax potted which takes you right to the edge of harmonic breakup. For that unmistakable vintage mojo, we wind every Antiquity humbucker on Seymour's original Leesona winding machine from the early Gibson factory in Kalamazoo, MI.