Found a pair of "Patent No." Mini Humbuckers

[ragamuffin]

Yesterday I went to the estate sale of a local luthier; not as much good stuff I as I was hoping for, but inside a small box I found a pair of what appear to be vintage Gibson or Epiphone minihumbuckers with black "Patent No." stickers! I paid $40 for them and went home happy.

From what little information that I can find on them it seems they're from the 60's or 70's, and similar pickups are going for $200-$300 on Reverb and Ebay. Anyone here have any further insights on them?

Anyways, I think this might warrant a new build: maybe a tele holowbody? I'm pretty excited about them!

 

[TBurst Std]

Looks like them came out of a mid 70s Deluxe.  They moved off Pat No s for most humbuckers by the 80s. (IE coming into the Shaw era)

 

[ragamuffin]

They measure 5.97 and 6.00k, that's pretty low right?

 

[mayfly]

Yep, those are from a mid to late 70's LP deluxe all right.  I know 'cause I used to own one!

They were not my favourite sounding pickup.  But I think it's the same hole as a P90 so if you build a guitar and don't like the PUs, then you have options...

 

[Tonar8352]

I refinished a top only on a 74 Gold Top that we could have used those pickups in a few years back. The owner had a custom pair built by Patrick from https://janktone.com/ and they turned out real nice. I liked that guitar a lot!
Here is the guy from Atlanta Rhythm Section coaxing great tones out of a Lester equipped with a set like yours. 
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lg97G37qtUE&ab_channel=RobertHudson[/youtube]

 

[Re-Pete]

As Mayfly has said, those are probably from a 1970s Gibson Les Paul Deluxe. Yes the low reading of the DC metering is standard for mini hums of many designs. The Firebird ones were also low DC rating. Decent tone to them though.

I liked the Firebird mini hums, and have no experience with the Deluxe mini hums. Are they a different magnet coil design? They may well be as I think Gibson inherited these from Epiphone. The Firebird mini hums had a blade design underneath the chrome cover, that may have given the Firebird pickup a better coverage of the string movement. Modern day Firebirds from Gibson have a ceramic magnet which gives it more oomph but it also changes the tonality a *bit*.

I'd put what you have into a drawer for safe keeping and see what the future holds. You may want to put them into a P90 loaded guitar of yours and see how they sound before selling them.

In any case, I reckon you have got a bargain there if they are working properly. Good find!  :icon_thumright:

 

[DuckBaloo]

I liked the Firebird mini hums, and have no experience with the Deluxe mini hums. Are they a different magnet coil design? They may well be as I think Gibson inherited these from Epiphone.

Yes, the Deluxe mini hums are bar magnet, steel poles...6 adjustable steel poles in one coil, one steel blade in the other. When Gibson bought and move Epiphone to Kalamazoo, they wanted to keep the signature "New Yorker pickup" look (which is not a humbucker), but hated everything else about the PU and designed a brand new humbucker.

Epiphone New Yorker construction...

Gibson Epiphone/Deluxe mini humbucker...

When Gibson designed the Firebird, they wanted to build a lower-cost mini for it and designed the FB PU to use two AlNiCo blade poles instead.

The P-90, Deluxe mini, and FB Mini both fall somewhere between Strat/Tele and PAF in tone, clarity, and output, and yet are all so very different from each other. Of the three, the Deluxe mini is more balanced, "rounder", and cleaner.

 

[ragamuffin]

Well I thought about keeping them for a future build or trying them out in my p90 tele, but I decided to put them up on reverb and see what I might get for them: worked out a deal for $500 for the pair so I took it! I (almost) felt a little bad about it since I bought them for so cheap, but I'm a guitar addict and that money will go a long way towards funding my next build!

 

[Fat Pete]

I really liked the sound of my Deluxe, but I would have taken the $500 too! Nice find!

 

[mayfly]

wow!  Good on you!  I think that I sold my '79 LP Deluxe for about that money... course that was 20 years ago...

 

[Steve_Karl]

I had a '76 deluxe that fell face down onto a hard wood stage and the head stock shattered.
I had it repaired but it never sounded the same after the repair.
Probably sold it for about $350.00 in the late '80s.