Seymour Duncan Antiquity Humbucker Pickup Set - Nickel Unaged

Early PAF pickups were low-output affairs meant to reduce hum, and distortion was considered a bug, not a feature. Which is why these pickups sounded so good: They were clean, clear, and had none of harsh nasal tone once builders started overwinding pickups to push their single channel amps. Now thankfully we have gain channels and pedals, and don’t need a hot pickup to do the heavy lifting. The Duncan Antiquity Humbucker set is a very faithful recreation of what made the early guitars (and their pickups) so coveted by professional players. Other than winding the bridge pickup a little heavier (early PAF’s did not differentiate between neck and bridge) Seymour Duncan sticks close to the original formula. Hear the sound that everyone has been chasing with the Duncan Antiquity Humbucker.

Alnico 2 magnets

Braided 2-conductor wiring

Neck – 7.7K DC resistance

Bridge – 8.6K DC resistance

In the words of Seymour Duncan...

The original boutique vintage humbucker pickups to make 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 “P.A.F.” 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 and aged both cosmetically and magnetically to simulate the wear and tear that a pickup goes through after decades of playing. The mold we use for our butyrate bobbins was created by the same factory that built the original P.A.F. 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 P.A.F., 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.