According to my research, this pickup was likely made between the second half of 1961, or the first part of 1962. So, it’s up in the air if it’s a very late PAF, or an early Patent Number pickup. Gibson made the switch to shorter magnets as early as the late 50’s. But, more officially July of 1961. They also changed the material of the bobbins sometime in 1962 for a sturdier material that produced straight bobbins. This pickup is the original material as it has a slight bow to the bobbins.

One bobbin has been rewound with the same wire as originally used on PAF’s. The tape is new on the one bobbin that was rewound. Three baseplate screws were missing and replaced, the lead was too short, so it was replaced, but the original comes with it, and maple spacer is non original. Otherwise, everything else is original including the one wound bobbin and the pickup cover.

Taken from email exchanges with Romain Pickups who rewound and repaired the pickup.

“-the feet on the baseplate have those well-documented “L” shaped tooling marks

• the pickup tape used on the good coil (the dead coil has o tape) has the black adhesive, not the white-ish adhesive new tape has
• the braided hookup lead has the double strand braid vs. modern triple strand braid

I also measured the magnet, which is an Alnico 5 measuring 2.3” in length. The screw-side bobbin has “CF 491-1” and a “2”.

This tells me that it’s either a late transition-era PAF, or more likely an early Patent No. Pickup. While I’d say not technically a PAF, it pretty much is the exact same but with a shorter magnet that PAF’s typically had (2.5” length). Gibson has used short magnets in pre-Pat No. pickups but since those are more rare than Patent No. pickups from the very early 60’s, I’d bet on this was a Patent No.

All that said, the bobbins, baseplate, original coil wire, pole screws and slugs are identical to PAFs and the magnet is from that era.

It came out at 7.9-8.1kOhms depending on weather. On hot days it’ll read 8-8.1k. Inductance is right at 4.8 Henries.

It’s warm, has great clarity, has a slight pillowy feel at the pick, almost like a slight sag kind of like how a good old tube rectified tube amp has a sag to it… sort of.”