Angel Hair PAF — Handmade Experimental Neck Humbucker

A completely unconventional take on the vintage PAF. (Video Here)

This pickup was developed as an experiment based on an old, unverified story about an unusual Gibson humbucker prototype from the mid-1950s.

The story describes a PAF using extremely fine magnet wire and an unusually thick Alnico III magnet. I've never found original Gibson documentation proving that this pickup actually existed, so this is my own interpretation of the idea, not a claim that this is a genuine Seth Lover design.

And after building and playing the prototype, I was genuinely surprised by how good it sounded.

It has the body and authority you'd expect from a PAF-style humbucker, but with an unusually open, articulate and dynamic character. It stays clear with gain, responds noticeably to picking dynamics, and has a distinctive voice that I've not heard from a conventional PAF-style pickup.

The build

These are handmade in very small numbers.

The extremely fine magnet wire makes the coils considerably more difficult to wind than a conventional humbucker, and the oversized Alnico III magnets used in the design have to be custom-made specifically for this pickup.

The rest of the pickup is assembled by hand using USA-made components and a vintage-inspired construction.

Because of the unusual materials and the amount of time involved in building each one, these aren't intended to be a high-volume production pickup.

Neck position only
Vintage 49.2mm pole spacing
Nickel cover only
$220 USD + shipping

A note about the history

This isn't being sold as a genuine 1950s Gibson pickup, nor am I claiming that Seth Lover built this exact design.

It's an experimental pickup inspired by a fascinating old story - and ultimately, I think the most interesting part is what the design actually sounds like.

If you live in the USA click here