About Fretted Americana:
We specialize in acquiring and offering the finest specimens of American vintage electric guitars with particular attention to those in their complete, original state.

We are the only dealer to embrace a written code of ethetics.

Yes, it really is an original PAF ES-295! This incredibly rare guitar weighs just 6.70 lbs. and has a very comfortable nut width of 1 11/16 inches and a standard Gibson scale length of 24 3/4 inches. Reminiscent of the ES-175, with the same sharp-edged single Florentine cutaway and pearl split-parallelogram inlays, this wonderful guitar has a 16-inch-wide laminated maple body, triple-bound on the top and single-bound on the bottom. One-piece mahogany neck with a wonderful thick profile. Brazilian rosewood fretboard with 20 original small frets. Headstock with inlaid pearl "Gibson" logo and pearl crown inlay. Individual ‘single-line’ Kluson Deluxe tuners with single-ring Keystone plastic buttons (stamped on the underside "2356766 / PAT APPLD").

Two original ‘double-black’ PAF humbucker pickups with nicely balanced outputs of 7.43k and 7.62k. Clear plastic pickguard back-painted in cream and embossed with a gold floral design. Four controls (two volume, two tone) on lower treble bout plus three-way selector switch on upper bass bout. Gold plastic bell-shaped "Bell" knobs. Les Paul combination trapeze bridge/tailpiece with strings looping over the bridge. All hardware gold-plated. With the original Gibson orange oval label inside the bass f-hole, with the style ("ES-295") written in black ink and the serial number ("A 25611") stamped in black. Inside the treble f-hole the FON (factory order number) is stamped in black "V 7724 7" which corresponds with late 1956.

This guitar is in exceptionally fine (9.00) condition. There is some light body checking and a little tarnishing to the gold-plated parts, but otherwise, the body is exceptionally clean and the neck remarkably so. This is a totally original, untouched and exceptional example of an extremely rare guitar — one of about a hundred and ten PAF ES-295s ever made. This actual guitar, which was formerly in the Chinery collection, is featured on p. 87 of The History of the American Guitar from 1833 to the Present Day by Tony Bacon.

Here is a great Video featuring this great guitar with Phil X

Phil X also discusses the Vintage PAF pickups on this vintage electric guitar:

Housed in the original brown hardshell case with purple plush lining (9.00). It has for a long time been common belief that there were only 49 PAF ES-295′s and most of them were issued in 1958. Indeed in Larry Meiners book Gibson Shipment Totals 1937-1979 he states that seventy-one ES-295′s were shipped in 1957 and forty-nine in 1958. A.R. Duuchossoir in his book Gibson Electrics The Classic Years (page 173) states "At the end of 1957, i.e. slightly later than the 175 models, the ES-295 was in turn fitted with a pair of humbuckers. To comply with the all-gold finish of the instrument, cream-coloured plastic rings were used to mount the gold-plated humbuckers". We contacted our friends at Gibson and from the Gibson shipping records we now know that the very first batch of PAF humbucker ES-295′s (three of them "A-25188"-"A-25190") were shipped on February 25th, 1957. The second batch of another ten guitars ("A-25350"-"A-25359") left the factory on March 29th, 1957. The third batch of another seventeen guitars ("A-25611"-"A-25627") left the factory on May 28th, 1957. Our guitar "A-25611" is the first of the third batch. So from this we can safely conclude that the majority of the seventy-one ES-295′s shipped in 1957 also had PAF humbuckers. It is interesting to note that according to the Gibson records the very first guitar to be fitted with PAF humbuckers was serial number "A-25000" which was shipped on February 18th, 1957. "The ES-295 was introduced in 1952 as the hollow body counterpart of the original Les Paul model. This is true in terms of finish, electronics and hardware, but otherwise the 295 is essentially a fancier twin pickup ES-175 At the end of 1957, i.e. slightly later than the 175 models, the ES-295 was in turn fitted with a pair of humbuckers. To comply with the all-gold finish of the instrument, cream-coloured plastic rings were used to mount the gold-plated humbuckers. The change of pickups did not revive the flagging fortunes of the ES-295 (still equipped with the Les Paul tailpiece) and the model was discontinued in Summer 1958. According to factory records, the last production guitars (#A27993 through A28009) were registered in August. However, the 295 nearly came back in 1959. As indicated in Part One, the gold colour was blamed for the declining popularity of the Les Paul model and ES-295 in the late 50s. In 1959 four 295s were specially built for the Summer convention and registered on 27th May. Two were finished in cherry red (#A30224 and A30225) and two in Argentine Grey (#A30226 and A30227). But apparently CMI did not think a new finish was sufficient to justify a return and the 295 was definitely abandoned". (A.R. Duchossoir, Gibson Electrics — The Classic Years, pp. 173-174)

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• Kim LaFleur talks PAF Pickups

Seth Lover
Humbuckers And other Lover innovations

A noted creator, Seth Lover’s achievements include numerous amplifiers and circuits, but none have been so highly recognized as his humbucking pickup, which became the Patent Applied For (P.A.F.) humbucker. The following is excerpted from an interview with Seth Lover conducted by VG’s Stephen Patt in 1996. At the time, Lover was working with pickup designer Seymour Duncan on the SH-55 humbucker, more commonly known as the Seth Lover Model. Lover passed away on January 31, 1997.

Vintage Guitar: Who got you started on the path of electronics?
Seth Lover:

I was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan, on January 1, 1910. In the early 1920s, a schoolteacher in Pennsylvania began helping me with electronics projects. I was living with my grandparents at the time, and we used to get the Philadelphia newspaper; the radio section showed how to build different circuits. I guess my first project was a one-tube radio, which worked pretty well. My grandparents had died in the 1920s, and I decided to join the Army, where I worked with electronics. And when I hit the end of my term in 1931, I took a radio course from a Washington, D.C. company. It was actually my second – the first was in 1925, while I was working on a farm.

How did your first radio business come about?

After my second course, I went into business in Kalamazoo, repairing radios and the like at the Butler Battery Shop. We’d recharge batteries, repair radios, and install them. But when Butler died, we started a shop at 465 Academy. Eddy Smith, an orchestra leader at Long Lake, was a good customer. I used to build amplifiers for them. The poor guitar player would be playing next to the piano, and you could see him moving his hands, but for the life of me you couldn’t hear him play one note! If they let him get close to the microphone, he could be amplified and heard.

In 1935, I went to work for M&T Battery, doing the same thing. Then in ’41, Walter Fuller wanted me to come to work for Gibson. They were buying amps from a Chicago company, the EH-125, the 150, and the 185. We’d plug in the tubes and test them – I was a troubleshooter. And when World War II came along, I joined the Army again.

In what capacity?

They offered me a Second Class Radioman rating, and I ended up in the Navy. I was sent to Connecticut, then to Treasure Island, near San Francisco, to radio electronics school. That August, I received my First Class rating and was sent to teach electronics near Washington, D.C. Most of my time during the war was spent teaching.

In 1944, I had to go to sea [on] the USS Columbus, which was being built in Massachusetts. I was sent there and began checking installations and spare parts, and a little later we were out to sea. Well, about 500 miles out, the drive shaft broke, and we had to turn around. In order to get at the thing, they had to cut a hole through all the decks. And before they got the darn thing fixed, the war was over!

Did you resume your electronics work?

Yes. I went back to work for Gibson and stayed for a couple years, until the Navy built a training station in Michigan. With my Chief’s rating, I was asked to work for them for $5,000 per year, which was a lot of money back then. Gibson was only paying me $3,000. A few years later, they wanted to transfer me to Minnesota. Ted McCarty asked me to build a special kind of pickup, which I did by hand. Then he decided Gibson could afford to pay me what I was getting in the Navy, so I was back with Gibson in 1952.

What were some of your earlier designs?

Before I’d gone into the Navy, I’d begun to design an amplifier. The tremolo circuit in typical amps at the time "putted" along if there was too much depth. I found a way to get a tremolo without any noise, using an optical device, and Gibson was building it while I was in the Navy. So in 1952, I began designing other amp circuits. In ’55, I got the idea for this humbucking pickup. When a single-coil pickup, got too close to an amplifier, it would make a godawful hum.

I had designed an amplifier – the Model 90 – which had a special humbucking choke, and figured I could use the same concept on the pickup itself. It was quite simple, really – just two coils opposed, and they’d pick up the hum and just cancel out. I designed it into the tone circuit of the amplifier, and if you’d swing to one end it would wipe out the bass, to the other extreme it would wipe out the treble. So, the pickup was similar in concept.

When did your humbucker actually begin production at Gibson?

We starting building our version in 1955, even though we didn’t have a patent, and that’s when they got the "PAF" stickers to put on them. When we finally were granted our patent, we changed the sticker to one with a patent number, but we actually printed the wrong number on the sticker, one that matched our tailpiece. This way people who sent away for copies of that patent didn’t ever get a copy of the pickup (laughs)! We were replacing the P-90, and there were other single coils being used, especially on steel guitars. I did make a humbucking pickup for steels that worked particularly well. The Gibson Electraharp had my pickup on it, and it was a whopper, but they didn’t build too many of them. It was quite expensive.

I bet you’ll like this. [Seth rummages through an old cabinet, and pulls out a cloth-wrapped something.] This is my PAF prototype. It has a stainless steel cover. There’s no high-conductivity in stainless like copper and brass, so it worked well. When the salesmen saw this with no adjustment screws, it was like breaking their arms! They just didn’t have anything to talk about. So, next came the punched-out holes and the adjustment screws.

Was there anything you did specifically for Epiphone?

Epiphone guitars used to have a bunch of pushbuttons, and every time you’d change settings, it’d go "clunk!" I designed a switch with a rocker panel and a magnet to hold the position. My version was never used, but it worked awfully well.

And on the Epiphone mini-humbucker, I changed the design to offset the screws and look different – maybe better in some ways – than the Gibson humbucker with its straight screws. It wasn’t quite as loud as the Gibson version, with fewer turns of the coil, and it was a bit trebly. But it did the job.

What prompted your shift from Gibson to their main competitor, Fender?

I stayed with Gibson until 1967, and then had an offer from my friend, Dick Evan, who was Fender’s chief engineer. Now, while I designed most of the amplifiers and pickups, I never did hold that title. I was just a designer. CBS had bought Fender, and they were kind enough to offer me a job. He sent me a ticket to come out [to California] and talk. And they offered me $12,000 per year. I was only getting $9,000 at Gibson.

So I came out and did design quite a bit of stuff for them. But the thing was, if the front office didn’t ask for something, they just weren’t interested in anything you’d come up with.

How did you and Seymour Duncan join forces?

After the patent ran out, Seymour started making the pickups, and he did an awfully good job, not just in appearance, but in materials and workmanship and sound. Everything, down to finest detail, was intact. We had used plain enameled #42 wire. A lot of people would use plastic-coated wire, but the results weren’t the same. We used nickel-silver on the covers originally, sometimes called German silver, again due to its low conductivity. You can’t solder stainless steel, so the nickel-silver worked better. And that’s what you see on these special Duncan-Lover pickups. It’s really faithful to the original. The SH-55 will have my stamp of approval on it, and I’ll even get a small royalty on each sale. Now, that’s something that Gibson never got around to giving me! My name doesn’t show up in too many of these history books, and maybe they didn’t value design in those days. I guess that’s why they never paid me much [a wicked glint in his eyes signals that Seth is gently pulling my leg]. I did a lot of work, and now it seems to be getting recognized.

• Kim LaFleur talks PAF Pickups

Gibson wanted to counter the latest electric guitars introduced by Fender. Leo Fender had built a company that was a sizable competitor in the solid-body guitar market place.

Gibson believed they could beat Fender with their high quality Les Paul, and by developing a low-noise pickup.       

The problem with Gibson’s P-90 and Fender’s single-coil pickups was inherent in their designs, allowing 60-cycle hum (noise) to interfer with the sound.

Seth Lover was the Gibson engineer assigned to solve the problem. Seth connected two single coil pickups in series (opposed to parallel) and connected the coils out-of-phase electrically and magnetically. Thus the signal noise of each separate coil canceled out the noise of the other coil. That is how the pickup came to be known as a "humbucker".

Seth/Gibson filed their patent for the pickup design on June 22, 1955. Gibson added the new pickups to steel guitars in 1956, and in 1957 on electric solid-body and arch-top guitars including the Les Paul Model. During late 1957, a small black decal with gold lettering was added to the underside of the pickup that read, "PATENT APPLIED FOR" (hence the PAF abbreviation).

Seth Lover received his pickup patent #2,896,491 on July 28, 1959. By mid to late 1962, Gibson changed the pickup decal to read, "PATENT NO 2,737,842". Interestingly the patent number listed on the decal was not for Seth’s pickup design but was for Les Paul’s trapeze tailpiece! Perhaps this was a research roadblock for the competition, or maybe just a mistake?

Billy Gibbons with his 1959 Gibson Les Paul (Pearly Gates):

• Kim LaFleur talks PAF Pickups

From 1956 until 1961 Gibson used different Alnico magnets in their PAF pickups. Alnico magnets (alloys ALuminum, NIckel, and CObalt) come in a different grades based on their magnetic strength. Gibson generally used the same magnets (size/grade) which was available for their P-90 pickups. But Gibson randomly used Alnico 2,3,4,5 grade magnets in PAFs until 1961 (remember the higher the magnet’s number, the higher the magnetic strength). This can often account for how two PAF pickups can sound quite different.

In July 1961 Gibson began consistently using a smaller Alnico 5 magnet (smaller as in the flat top side of the magnets were smaller length-wise). Since inconsistency was king at Gibson during this time, Alnico 2 short magnets are sometimes seen too. By 1965 though Alnico 5 was the standard for all Gibson humbuckers.

The original PAF magnet length was 2.5″ long, which was decreased by 1/8″ to 1/4″ to around 2.25″ in July 1961. But the “short magnet” PAF can be seen as early as 1959 and is still original. Gold plated guitars (ES-345, LP Custom, etc) seem to use the short magnet PAFs before nickel plated guitars (like the ES-335, LP Standard, etc). Just from a consistency point of view, July 1961 is the date considered by most as when short magnets were the norm for PAFs. Generally speaking decreasing the length decreases the power of the pickups, but this was somewhat counteracted by the Alnico 5’s added strength.

When new, the shorter A5 magnet is more powerful than the longer A2 magnet. So do short magnet PAFs sound worst than 1957-1960 long magnet PAFs? NO. In fact, they may sound better in many cases. But there are lots of things that effect sound, with the magnet only being one piece of the equation. Dimensions of PAF magnets follow (measured using a micrometer, and obviously this will vary a bit from magnet to magnet): 2.509″ long (”long magnet” version), .506″ wide, .131″ thick. The “short magnet” PAF length was the a bit different: 2.371″ long, .491″ wide, and .121″ thick. Another interesting point are the magnets in 1950s P-90 pickups (remember P-90 pickups are single coil predecessors to PAFs). There are *two* magnets in the P90 pickups, and yes they are identical to the 1950s PAF magnets (rough sand casted). Because of this, there has been a fair bit of “magnet hijackings” where players take p90 pickup magnets and put them into newer pickups, hoping to get that original PAF sound. Albert King with his 1959 Flying V equipped with original PAF Pickups:

• Kim LaFleur talks PAF Pickups

• Kim LaFleur talks PAF Pickups

Les Paul Standard model is probably the most famous of the models to have PAFs pickups, though other models had them too. Like the ES-175, ES-295, Byrdland, ES-350, ES-5 switchmaster, L-5CE, the Super 400 and the ES-335/ES-345/ES-355 (when introduced in 1958/1959). Peter Green with his 1959 Gibson Les Paul:

Gary Moore with the same Les Paul:

• Kim LaFleur talks PAF Pickups

A narrow spaced neck position PAF on a 1959 L-5CES

A “normal” spaced bridge position PAF on a 1959 L-5CES.

The internals of a narrow spaced neck position PAF pickup. Notice the tooling marks (circled in red) where the “normal” spaced poles would be.

Pic by D.Paetow

• Kim LaFleur talks PAF Pickups

First and foremost, never ever remove the cover from an original PAF pickup, unless you have a darn good reason. There is just no need for this, and it really makes the pickup “unoriginal” if you remove the metal cover. If you are dying to see the color of the pickup bobbins, just remove one of the underside bottom mounting screws and look in the hole, instead of removing the pickup cover.

Photo by Kim LaFleur ~ Vintage Checkout ~

Early P.A.F. pickups as used on the 1956 lapsteels and 1957 Les Paul Standard had brushed stainless steel pickup covers (brushed to make them look nickel plated). This quickly changed to brass covers with a nickel plating. If the cover was gold, the brass was first nickel plated and then gold plated. Early PAFs also have four brass bobbin attachment screws, instead of steel screws. Also the early PAFs with stainless covers often did *not* have a PAF decal on the bottom (so some 1957 Gibson guitars will have unlabeled PAF pickups with brushed stainless covers). Here is a pre-PAF sticker 1957 Les Paul goldtop pickup. Notice the lack of a PAF sticker, which is common for many 1957 PAF guitars.

Photo by Kim LaFleur  ~ Vintage Checkout ~

Photo by Kim LaFleur ~ Vintage Checkout ~

With that in mind, the first picture shows the bottom side of the PAF pickup, and the decal that declares the humbucker is “Patent Applied For” (PAF). Note the lettering and style of the decals. The lettering is gold, and sometimes the gold does turn green just a bit. The clear edge decal border around the black PAF decal has a slight green tint to it. Again remember very early stainless steel covered PAF pickups will not have any decal on the bottom. Also note the untouched solder joints holding the pickup cover to the pickup base plate. And the single stranded black cloth-covered lead wire, which is shielded with a braided metal wrap. The “L” shaped tooling marks can be clearly seen on the feet of these PAFs.

Photo by Kim LaFleur ~ Vintage Checkout ~ 

Photo by Kim LaFleur  ~ Vintage Checkout ~

Zebra PAF. Note the “circle around the square” tooling hole at the top of both bobbins. Notice the hole on the adjustable pole piece side has a smaller circle around it. The non-adjustable side always has a slightly larger circle. Reissue pickups copy this somewhat but don’t copy it just right. Also on newer pickups the circle and square is very clean and crisp. On original PAFs they are less perfect. Also look inside the bobbin holes for the bobbin wire color. It should be a copper wire with a purplish hue. The color of the wire is very important, and it shouldn’t look too clean (the pickup is 40+ years old!) One bobbin removed on an late PAF pickup, showing the magnet. The length of this magnet changed in summer 1961 from 2.5″ to around 2.25″ (decreased in length 1/8 to 1/4″).

Photo courtesy of vintage guitar info

Enjoy this great clip from Snowy White with his PAF equipped 1957 Goldtop:

• Kim LaFleur talks PAF Pickups

Photo by Kim LaFleur ~ Vintage Checkout ~

Photo by Kim LaFleur ~ Vintage Checkout ~ 

Photo by Kim LaFleur ~ Vintage Checkout ~

The tape that is used to wrap the bobbins. It is *not* a PVC plastic tape, but instead is a black paper-ish adhesive tape. It should not look like it was ever removed, unless the pickup was rewound (rewinds are a bad thing).

Photo by Kim LaFleur ~ Vintage Checkout ~

"Rare" zebra PAFs with the white bobbins with adjustable poles.

Photo by Kim LaFleur ~ Vintage Checkout ~

Photo by Kim LaFleur ~ Vintage Checkout ~

Photo by Kim LaFleur  ~ Vintage Checkout ~

Another PAF equipped Gibson Les Paul:

• Kim LaFleur talks PAF Pickups

Photo by Kim LaFleur ~ Vintage Checkout ~

Photo by Kim LaFleur ~ Vintage Checkout ~

Photo by Kim LaFleur  ~ Vintage Checkout ~

Photo by Kim LaFleur ~ Vintage Checkout ~ 

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• Kim LaFleur talks PAF Pickups

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• Kim LaFleur talks PAF Pickups

• Kim LaFleur talks PAF Pickups

The Blackguard Fests in Dallas & New York
Were Great Successes

Back Row: John Beland, Jay Rosen, Nacho Banos, Gary Dick, Mike Reeder
Front Row: John Kinnemeyer, Rhonda Kinnemeyer, Tom Wittrock

Nacho Banos, John Beland, and Bill Hullett

• Kim LaFleur talks PAF Pickups

Vintage Gibson Humbuckers Specs:

1956 – 1957 (“PAF”): Long (2.5”) Alnico 2, 3, 4 and 5 magnets used randomly, brushed stainless steel cover, *no* PAF sticker, automatic traverse wound with manual-stop (until bobbin was “full”), #42 plain enamel wire (purple), individual coil ohm differences, black leads on coils, ohms vary from low 7k to high 9k, black PAF-style bobbins (”square in circle” with holes). PAFs first installed on Gibson lap-steels in ‘56 and then guitars in ‘57.

1957 – 1961 (“PAF”): Long Alnico 2, 3, 4 and 5 used randomly (A2 most common), nickel cover, “Patent Applied For” sticker, automatic traverse-wound with manual-stop, #42 plain enamel wire (purple), individual coil ohm differences, black leads on both coils, ohms vary greatly – generally between 7k and 10k, black and cream (early-’59 thru mid-‘60), all bobbins black again by late ’60, PAF-style pickup bobbins.

1961 – 1962 (Late “PAF”): Smaller (2.37”) Alnico 5 magnet used for remaining production (all transitioned by July ’61), nickel cover, PAF sticker, automatic traverse-wound with manual-stop, #42 plain enamel wire (purple), black leads on both coils, individual coil ohm differences, ohms averaged 8.0k by ‘62, PAF-style bobbins.

1962 – 1964 (“Patent no.”): Alnico 5, nickel cover, “patent no.” sticker (mid-’62), polyurethane wire (starting ‘63), black/white lead wires, “auto-stop” winding starts circa-’62, PAF-style bobbins, usually 7.6k – 8.0k ohm.

1965 – 1967 (Late “Patent no.”): Alnico 5, polyurethane wire, “patent no.” sticker, bobbin wires white, Chrome cover (starts mid-’65), more durable and flatter bobbins with no “square in circle” hole circa-‘65, ohms usually between 7.4k – 8.0k. Gold-plated PAFs used in arch-top electrics as late as 1965 – “Varitone” guitars had gold-plated pickups with one pickup having a reversed magnet. This pickup style was used far less than nickel-plated pickups, thus inventory lasted thru 1965.

1967 – 1980 (“T-top”): “T” on bobbin top, Chrome cover, Alnico 5, polyurethane wire, automated winding begins ‘65 – ‘68, some ’69 – ’73 pickup covers embossed “Gibson”, “patent no.” sticker on baseplate ‘67 – ‘74, (patent number metal-stamped beginning 1974), ink stamp with date ‘77 – ‘80, ohms average 7.5k – consistently reading between 7.3k – 8.0k.

General Pickup Tech:

The following pickup article is based on years of pickup related research, experience and experimentation. It’s written to be accessible to both the average guitarist and those who appreciate technical description. If you’re interested in pickup tech and tone, you will get a lot out of it after careful reading.

Alnico Magnet Types and Gauss
The II thru V Alnico numbering system is used to indicate the specific alloy each type of Alnico magnet is composed of. Alnico stands for ALuminum, NIckel, and CObalt. Other than iron (which comprises about 50% of all Alnico magnets), these are the main metals used in Alnico magnets – plus all grades but Alnico IV have a bit of copper in them too. And, interestingly, Alnico III contains no cobalt. So, we see the recipe for each Alnico grade is different, with the ratio of metals in each alloy varying quite a bit.

Magnetic flux is measured in Gauss – this is an indication of how strong a magnet is capable of being. Magnetic field intensity is measured in Oersteds. Technically speaking, the strength of a magnet is best measured as an approximate combined product of the Gauss and Oersteds. This is somewhat analogous to how electrical power in Watts is the product of Volts and Amps (Volts x mA = Watts). For instance, 40 mA at 250 volts (40 x .250) produces 10 watts per tube, and the same 40 mA at 500 volts (40 x .500) produces 20 watts. So, when considering magnetic strength, ultimately, both gauss and oersteds are factors. Yet, I’ll keep the scope of this article to follow to the more commonly used measurement gauss.

Alnico III actually possesses the weakest gauss of all commonly used Alnico magnets – less than Alnico II, IV and V. That said, you can still have an Alnico V magnet that’s weaker than an Alnico II magnet, because magnets aren’t always fully charged. Yet, Alnico V has the capacity to hold a stronger magnetic charge than Alnico II, III or IV. A weaker a magnet lowers the resonant peak and a stronger magnet will increase the resonant peak and brightness audible to the ear.

Following is some data regarding accurate gauss meter readings on approx 80 Alnico magnets. The magnets checked were Alnico II, IV and V – both polished and rough cast had the following readings:

New Alnico II magnets measured at gauss levels ranging from 22 to a high of 35, with most in the 25 to 30 range. Alnico IV magnets ranged from 22 to a high of 36, with most in the 32 to 35 range. The Alnico V magnets tested were all from older Gibson “T-top” pickups – 20+ years old, and these all measured in the 25 to 30 gauss range, with most reading 25 to 27 gauss. So, interestingly, older “T-top” pickups show moderate gauss level readings for Alnico V. Gibson pickup magnet gauss readings, on both Alnico II and V magnets, consistently averaged 25 to 30 gauss on the late-‘50s thru the early-‘70s guitars.

A Burstbucker Alnico II rough cast magnet had the most consistent reading along it’s edges than all the other magnets tested, with a gauss level of 25. I was expecting to see a gauss range that defined the different grades, but there were some unexpected results. Alnico V magnets of the “T-top” era had notably lower than expected readings. And, except for the Burstbucker magnet, all the magnets were stronger towards one end of the magnet. This could possibly have tonal implication on magnet orientation in the pickup. Conversely, newly recharged Alnico II magnets in testing spiked out higher towards the center of the magnet.

The type of magnet in a pickup can have more impact on tone than winding resistance when dealing with modest ohm variations of 1 – 2k. You can have a humbucker reading 9k with an output approaching a single-coil. And, conversely have a Humbucker reading 7.5k that sounds like a typical “hotter” wound pickup, as we see with some of the Alnico V magnet pickups of the Gibson “T-top” era. Output and tone depends as much on magnets as winding types, not to mention everything else in the chain like pots, caps, etc.

So, the actual pickup tone type is highly dependant on the magnet and the resistance/windings, as a pickup with a dead magnet will produce 0% output! Additionally, long magnets (PAF-style) are a bit punchier and have better definition than the short magnets, which can sometimes produce a slightly “smeared” sound. Though magnet type can compensate for this, as Alnico V’s additional output, punch and brightness balanced out the shorter magnet size Gibson used beginning 1961.

Additionally, the stud side of the coil actually has slightly more output than the adjustable side on a traditional humbucker. There is a direct connection to the magnet inside the pickup on the stud side, while the adjustable pole extends out the bottom of the pickup. And, there is a slight loss of magnetic field and energy out the bottom of the pickup.

Bobbins, Wire and Winding
A pickup’s treble response is related to the magnet strength interacting with the windings. Think of it as a bell curve. The more winds, the brighter the pickup gets, but only up to a certain point. After that point more winds take away treble. The stronger the magnet the more winds you can add before the treble starts to drop off. Yet, all other factors being equal, inductance increases and treble response decreases, the higher the number of winds.

Resistance is only one indication of a pickup’s overall output – it tells a lot about the actual character of a pickup only when one consider the magnet that is used with it. And, bobbin types are key – skinny and tall coils produce a clearer sound than short and wide coils, all other factors being equal. Also, you can have a pickup with a higher resistance that has less output if the wire gauge is thicker or magnet gauss is lower than the pickup being compared. Or, you can have one pickup that is lower resistance with higher output if the wire is smaller diameter. Additionally, with tight wound coils the wire stretches a bit, which will give a higher resistance reading, because of the additional wire length. Loose winding generates a brighter tone, because with two identically sized coils wound from the same wire, the looser coil will have fewer winds than the tight coil.

Resistance is actually measuring the length of wire used in a coil and doesn’t necessarily indicate how many turns are used, as wire thickness and bobbin sizes vary. If a pickup is longer or larger, it will have the same resistance with less output due to the lower turn count. Turn count is really what determines output, but seeing how there is no way to count turns on an already wound pickup people use resistance for output comparison.

Fewer winds will have an audible effect, because the pickup will have less inductance, which affects the frequency response – making the pickup brighter. The pickup inductance interacts with the guitar volume/tone controls, guitar cable capacitance, and amplifier input load to create an EQ network. More inductance causes more highs to be lost in this EQ circuit. This also means that resistance ’specs’ are misleading, because the turns count is what really makes the pickup sound they way it does. Inductance itself is related to the square of the turn count, so a small error in turns becomes a large error in inductance. By winding to a resistance value, you can’t get the turns count right because you don’t know what tension other pickup makers are using. But, by winding to a specific turn count or inductance value, you stand a much better chance of winding a successful pickup.

A traditional PAF pickup uses 42 gauge plain enamel insulation wire. Then there are other types of insulation like polyurethane, which would mean the coil wire might have a different overall diameter, so not all 42 gauge wire is created equal. There are also lighter wires, such as 43 or 44 gauges. In general, thinner wire will create a more high-frequency loss than thicker wire, all other factors being equal. Interestingly, in this same coil, polyurethane and heavy-build wire usually wind to same resistance and have the same inductance, and plain enamel is noticeably higher in resistance and inductance.

If you wind two identical coils, same resistance, but one with heavy-build insulation, the heavy build insulation coil will be noticeably brighter. It’s because there’s more capacitance going on since the actual metal in the wire has more gap between wires because it’s filled with heavier insulation. So, if that’s true then theoretically a looser coil would have the same effect. Moreover, polyurethane wire facilitates a punchier tone, while plain-enamel has a more vintage tonal character.

So, if other wire factors differ, you’ll have different behaviors. For example, if the coating has a different dielectric constant or thickness, the overall parasitic capacitance will change together with inductance, which shifts the resonant peak consequently. With loose windings or wire of same AWG but thicker insulation, you’ll have a lower inductance and parasitic capacitance, so even if the number of windings stays the same, the resonant peak will be higher and the output lower.

Pickup Cover Effects
Pickup cover types are another important aspect of tonal influence. Contrary to popular conception, it’s not so much whether you use covered or uncovered pickups that makes the most tonal difference. Nor, does the type of plating on a given cover make any considerable difference. Rather, what is most crucial to a pickup’s tone is two things: the exact metal or alloy a pickup cover is made of and the cover base thickness.

Solid-brass covers are usually the worst in terms of transparency and loss of high-end. Solid nickel-silver is the most transparent cover alloy, and it retains highs best. Yet, covers that are too thick (even nickel-silver) can impact tone as negatively as brass covers even. So, covers to avoid are brass, too thick nickel-silver and cheap alloys in general, as varying compositions of metal alloy effects tone differently.

Rating Pickups with DC Resistance
DC resistance is NOT a power rating, rather its the resistance of the wire in a pickup’s coil at zero hertz, something that only occurs when a guitar isn’t played. DC resistance specs are inadequate as sole power and tone indicators of an AC device like a pickup. Small fluctuating AC (not DC) voltages from pickups are what control outpout from an amp or plate currents of a tube. The large current flowing through the plate fluctuates with the same frequency as the small guitar pickup voltage, and the tones we love come through. An amplifier makes the small AC signal coming from your guitar pickups big enough to move a speaker cone.

If we do use DC resistance as a parameter for indicating tonal response, for one, we disregard the fact that this resistance rating is frequency dependant. Tonal output varies across the frequency spectrum. Additionally, the pure output rating of a pickup is more accurately indicated in millivolts. Millivolts could be a helpful parameter in indicating pickup output and tone if manufacturers agreed on a standard measuring method that provides such data measured at various frequencies over a wide frequency range.

Inductance is another important parameter to consider in the sonic evaluation of a pickup. Put in simplest terms, as a general rule the higher the inductance, the lower the treble response and the higher the output and midrange emphasis will be. For examples, a traditional Strat pickup has an inductance around 2.3 henry, while a Gibson PAF has an inductance around 4.4 henry, and some of the so-called “distortion” pickups have an inductance above 8.0 henry. With these comparisons, you get a basic idea of this quality.

So, several important factors can to be considered to more accurately speculate the tone and output of a pickup – tone and output depend mainly on the relation between magnetic strength, wiring resistance and the resulting inductance of a pickup. And, don’t forget the relation between the inductance of the pickup and the capacitance of guitar cables and effects. Guitar cable capacitance especially impacts frequency response and output.

Other Factors Influencing Pickup Tone
The electric guitar is still fundamentally an acoustic instrument. And, any given pickup responds very differently to each and every guitar model. The wood (or other materials) of a guitar absorbs some frequencies and resonates others. And, a pickup only picks up the frequencies and levels that a string is generating. So, for instance, if you have a guitar that absorbs frequencies most readily between 200 and 500 Hz, you will likely have thinner sounding treble strings, than if the guitar absorbed higher range frequencies. If your guitar resonated well between the previously mentioned frequencies, it would facilitate beefier treble string response. Additionally, guitars that are more resonant allow you to use a lower output, brighter pickup and still get the same volume.

Last but not least, it is every player’s unique articulation and musicality that ultimately impacts a listener’s perception of tone. As intangible as this aspect is, ranging from magical to mundane, every players unique touch is the most crucial factor influencing tonal perception. Not convinced? I ask you this then: How many of you have heard mediocre players playing through the finest “holy grail” gear, whether live or on the internet, only to be left unmoved by the tone. And, conversely, how many have listened recordings of brilliant players playing through something like a $50 battery-powered Pignose amp (as used on Derek and the Dominos’ Layla album, for instance), only to be left amazed at the tone achieved? I’ve experienced this phenomenom countless times – it is the magic alchemy of great Tone and musicianship.

• Kim LaFleur talks PAF Pickups

To evaluate the state of the vintage guitar market, Adam interviews the Burst Brothers, experts on the subject.

When we set out to track the peak of the vintage market in 2006 and its subsequent correction in the years since for this month’s cover story, two of the first people we called were Dave Belzer and Andrew Berlin, an enterprising pair of Southern California vintage dealers known by most of the guitar industry simply as the Burst Brothers.

Hidden behind their sunglasses and easy-going nature lie two of the sharpest minds in the vintage world, and they’ve proven a knack for making bold moves at the right times, perhaps best illustrated by orchestrating Guitar Center’s 2004 multi-million dollar acquisition of a trio of iconic guitars at auction, including Clapton’s Blackie and Cream-era 335 and SRV’s Lenny. We sat down with Belzer and Berlin in late May to get their takes on the current state of the vintage market and their predictions for the future.

Where have you seen the vintage market go in the last six months to a year?

DAVE: Within the last year, obviously with the state of the economy, it’s about where most things are at: people’s houses and most collectibles are down 20-30 percent on average.

DREW: There are not people lined up like there were to buy vintage guitars. For a while, it seemed like a lot of people were wanting to buy guitars not just to play and enjoy, but as investments. A lot of people were using their home equity to do it, and we’ve seen a lot of that slow down. However, within the last month we’ve seen it pick up – definitely within the last few weeks.

DAVE: I would say within the last two months it has started to pick up. Two months ago it was the lower end – stuff in that $500 to $3000 range – but within the last month we’ve started to really get people who are inquiring about higher-dollar items, and suddenly we’re starting to move some guitars over the $10,000, $20,000 price range. It’s the people that still have a passion and love for the instrument, and they’re not in it so much from an investment standpoint as they are for the love of the instrument. And I think people are starting to feel a little better about spending money. It’s a good time to buy. The fact that everything is down somewhat means that if you’re a buyer, it’s not a bad time to be in business.

DREW: Additionally, there’s more availability now on things that were harder to get before. Prices got so high that people figured, “it’s time to sell,” while there are other people selling because they have too much money tied up in properties, and they feel that they can still get more out of their vintage guitar than a house or something similar.

Are there any sectors of the market that were particularly hard hit by the market’s correction?

DAVE: I would say Fender across the board – bass-wise, Fenders weren’t hurt too much, but guitar-wise, everything Fender has been a little soft and slow.

DREW: You have to realize that Fender was a mass-producing company that made tens of thousands of sunburst guitars in the sixties; their goal was to get as many out into the public as possible. It took longer to carve a Gibson and to glue the neck in, and Fender was slapping the necks on and turning them out. And they’re great instruments, but I think they got a little heavy there – they needed a little correction as they started to get a little ridiculous. I think they’re adjusting now.

What about the very high end of the market – how were amazing Bursts affected, for example?

DREW: I think at this point a perfect Burst is still going for the same amount of money; there are just so few of them for sale. What we’re seeing is that there are a lot of Bursts on the market, but they are generally plain and not exciting, not flamey or they have issues. I would still think that if you found the right Burst you could get $600,000 for it if it was flamey and in perfect condition – there are still guys who would be willing to spend the right amount of money for the right instrument. The ones that have gone down in value are the ones that are not that exciting or have issues.

DAVE: Even as of six months ago, there were some Bursts that sold for over $500,000, but keep in mind these were the one or two in 1500 that were so phenomenal, so flamey, so light and ‘59s. A ‘58 isn’t going to get it, a ‘60 isn’t going to get it, but if it’s the right ’59, it’s going to get top dollar, and there are buyers lined up for that.

As we move towards vintage shows like Arlington, which are really considered barometers of the market, what are you keeping an eye out for?

DAVE: You’re hoping to see the public bring some instruments out for sale. I’m hoping that dealers become a little more realistic to what pricing is today – it seems that you’re still going to guitar shows and seeing the same price on instruments that was there two years ago at the height of the market. I haven’t quite seen that adjustment yet. Also, I’m expecting to see less high-end stuff, because the high-end is so soft right now that dealers aren’t even bringing that stuff to shows right now. We’re all trying to buy that lower end stuff.

Is this a buyer’s market for the players who have been sitting on the sidelines, or do you believe that people should wait longer, that there’s more to fall?

DAVE: My recommendation would be that yes, if you have the money, this is a buyer’s market, especially for Fender stuff. It’s a good time to buy; try to buy the best, cleanest, original piece you can.

DREW: There are still pieces that I don’t think have completely matured in terms of being collectible, that haven’t been completely collected up where you can’t buy any more of them and the price gets higher. I won’t say exactly what all of those pieces are [laughs], but there are still some pieces that you can buy that are a good value in terms of how they will appreciate, because there just weren’t that many made, and people are starting to become hip to them.

A good example would be amps. Amps have been doing very well, and we’re selling a lot of amps, especially smaller amps. The appreciation for amps is growing and it’s one of those markets that we’re doing very well in.

As older vintage pieces become rarer, does that mean some of the newer pieces from the ‘70s and ‘80s are going to see a corresponding rise in value?

DREW: Guitars from the ‘70s were not considered vintage when I was doing shows in the early and mid-‘80s. If you had ‘70s guitars in your booth, that was kind of a no-no. You weren’t taken seriously if a [Fender] guitar had three bolts in those days. Now we can’t find enough good early ‘70s stuff to keep in stock. There’s a very big market for those guitars that’s growing.

I don’t know if it’s going to bleed over into the ‘80s – I don’t think so [laughs], just because there’s gotta be some cutoff there. In my opinion, some ‘70s Strats were decent, but they weren’t of the quality that four-bolts from the ‘50s and ‘60s were; yet, to some musicians, that era in the ‘70s was my ‘50s, and so they still see them as vintage instruments.

DAVE: Believe or not, there is a little buzz about ‘80s Fender reissue stuff right now. The early Tele reissues, the ‘57 Strat reissues – they’ve really jumped in price within the last year and there’s a lot of desirability. ‘80s Gibson dot 335 reissues also seem to be hot. That stuff falls into a certain price point, and they’re good, quality instruments.

DREW: The early ‘70s dot necks were made by the archtop luthiers that were making Gibson’s archtops in the ‘50s and ‘60s; if you can get one of these, they can make for a great workhorse, and you won’t have to spend $20,000 on a vintage 335.

Are vintage guitars going to remain a good investment moving forward?

DREW: It’s hard for us to predict – I never thought they’d be close to what they are. In this business and doing it for so long, I never thought I’d see a burst hit over $100,000, or over $500,000. But I would assume that vintage is what’s hip for young people to use, and even if vintage for them is seventies, it’s still vintage. There are a lot of good guitars being made now by Gibson, Martin and Fender, but there’s something about the mystique of the vintage piece – its sex appeal, what it does, the mojo, the inspiration that you get from a piece that’s been around for years and continues to get better and better. I seriously doubt that that feeling you get from picking up a really cool, old piece made in the ‘50s or ‘60s will go away.

DAVE: And people are still going to want a ‘52 Telecaster; they’re still going to want to want a ‘50s Les Paul, because that’s what Jimmy Page and Duane Allman played. Those artists are always going to be icons, and guitar players are always going to want those instruments and the sound they created.

DREW: I do want to say that some of the people that Dave and I have built collections for throughout the years, there have unfortunately been a couple of people that needed to sell their instruments because they came up against hard times, but generally, I think that people appreciate that they took the chance 10, 15 years ago when these prices were way lower, but were very high prices at the time. They bought instruments thinking they were paying a lot, and a lot of those people are just really grateful now because the money they allocated for those instruments they would have just played the stock market with. A lot of people have called us and thanked us for recommending vintage guitars – they still have them, they still love them, and they’re still incredibly valuable.

• Kim LaFleur talks PAF Pickups

Lynne Margolis

David Belzer (L) and Drew Berlin – The Burst Brothers

Quite possibly the most famous pair of dealers in the vintage guitar world, the Guitar Center’s Dave Belzer and Drew Berlin set new records for electric guitar auction prices when they bought Eric Clapton’s Blackie Stratocaster, his Cream-era Gibson ES-335, and Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Strat, Lenny, at the 2004 Christie’s auction to benefit Clapton’s Crossroads Centre at Antigua substance abuse recovery facility. They – well, the Guitar Center – paid $959,500 for the iconic Blackie, $847,500 for the 335 and $623,500 for Lenny. That’s $2.5 million for three objects of wood and wire – though in the three years since, their value has undoubtedly climbed even higher.

Eric Clapton’s Blackie. Photo by Robert M. Knight.

It may not have been their money, but Belzer and Berlin were the guys sitting in the audience with the paddles, praying they’d win any one of those holy grails. Traveling home with all three – plus a Martin acoustic George Harrison had given to Clapton – was more than they’d dared hope for. As far as career pinnacles go, they crested Mt. Everest on June 24, 2004.

How they did it is quite a story – one they tell practically in unison, easily fitting words into each other’s sentences and nearly mirroring one another’s thoughts (though only Dave punctuates his comments with the occasional conspiratorial laugh). Rapport like that, you can’t fake. Without it, it’s doubtful the team known as the Burst Brothers would have pulled off their singular feat.

In an interview that took place in the Renaissance Hotel lobby bar during the 2007 Dallas International Guitar Festival (where three of the Crossroads Auction guitars were on display together for the first time) in April, they spilled the details to Modern Guitars.

Lynne Margolis: Identify yourselves for the recorder, guys. And tell us how you wound up here.

The Burst Brothers at Guitar Center’s Hollywood Vintage Room

Drew Berlin:

We’re the senior vintage guitar buyers for the Guitar Center.

David Belzer: I’m David Belzer, the softer, quieter voice.

Drew: And I’m Drew Berlin – the more intense loudmouth.

David: We’ve both been players all our lives. Drew toured for 20 years off and on with Little Richard. We’ve both been playing and I’ve been teaching guitar, and I guess, between the two of us, how many years have we got?

Drew: I started playing guitar in 1955, and I’m 56 years old. Dave grew up playing guitar. Dave actually majored in music and got a degree in music.

David: Yeah, that’s right. Somewhere along the way I did get a degree.

Drew: And he’s an excellent teacher, he understands music. I was more into the performance end of it. I went by ear and the seat of my pants. We both started by being musicians playing guitars and liking guitars. I was the guy that always found the guitars for all the other musicians I was associated with, and brought them back and said, ‘Here’s a good one.’

David: Drew’s probably been doing it since the later ‘60s and I’ve been doing it since the later ‘70s. In ’95, we started together in the (Guitar Center’s) Hollyood Vintage Room. They had just built the Vintage Room in ’95 and opened it, I think in January of ’95. I started in February, Drew …

The Burst Brothers on stage

Drew:

Dave was managing the store in Hollywood before they built the Vintage Room and I was an independent dealer, full-time musician/independent dealer at the shows, and I was helping Guitar Center buy the correct stuff and pointing out the incorrect stuff, so when they built the Vintage Room they asked me if I would be interested in running it and being the buyer. I said OK. I didn’t know Dave until I went there and they interviewed me and I accepted the job, and then I met Dave.

Interestingly enough, his name and phone number were in my book, but I’d never contacted him. So we had one thing in common; we both loved guitars and music. But we both loved Gibson Les Pauls, especially the sunburst Les Pauls from ’58 to ’60, and my nickname, because I played these guitars live – people thought I was crazy because they were so valuable – they nicknamed me Burst. So after Dave and I partnered up, I said, ‘OK, now we are the Burst Brothers.’ And it caught on, I guess, for several different reasons. Everybody thought it was funny and amusing, cute, whatever, and it stuck. That was 13 years ago.

Lynne: Tell me about bidding on the guitars, the holy grails in there. You said it was at the (Crossroads) show that you realized the Guitar Center needed those guitars, right?

Drew: We were at the Crossroads Music Festival (2004) in Texas that the Guitar Center co-sponsored with Clapton, and Christie’s did a really beautiful display and Dave pulled me in there and walked me through and said, ‘This is the Cream guitar and that’s Blackie. These are, like, really significant.’

David: Well, I was sitting there watching, sitting a few feet away from the guitars and just watching people’s reactions as they walked up to the guitar.

Lynne: It was like worship, wasn’t it? I was there.

David: It was. We just sat there and said we should own these guitars. And they should not be under somebody’s bed or hidden in somebody’s closet, they should be out for people to see and appreciate. And I think the CEO of our company at the time, Marty Albertson, was there, too, at the show. He was close by and we mentioned it and he got it into his head that we should do that.

Lynne: Was there a ceiling at which you were supposed to stop bidding?

Drew: We had a meeting before Dave and I went to New York to the auction, and we had discussed a target, how much we were going to pay, and yes, we were pretty organized.

David: We knew which four pieces we were going after and what our limit was.

The George Harrison-Eric Clapton Martin 00-18. Photo by Robert M. Knight.

Lynne:

What was the fourth one again?

David: The one that’s not here, because they didn’t bring the Martin, that little 00-18 Martin that was George Harrison’s that he had given to Eric Clapton.

Drew: … that he had given to Clapton.

David: It had the case with the Hare Krishna symbol.

Drew: We had the guitars we wanted to target, and when people realized who Dave and I were, in line, walking into the auction, there was all this controversy and all this talk. ‘Oh, the Burst Brothers are here and they’re gonna pay millions of dollars for Blackie.’ We were told that there was a Japanese buyer that was already committed to paying $2 million for Blackie and that we were going to have to really pony up to beat that and we heard all these other rumors in line about Blackie, and people were making bets on how much Blackie would go for at the auction.

David: At Christie’s, there was a pool going.

Lynne: So, who were you bidding against?

Drew: We were pretty close to the front. We couldn’t see everybody.

David: Yeah, we were kind of in the first row there, so it was really hard to say. I think there was a phone bidder that was going against me. There were a couple of people in the crowd.

Drew: I think everybody was bidding until it (Blackie) hit a half-million. And then it got real quiet. There was a lot of action till 500 grand and then everybody kind of quieted down, and there were a few more people involved, which were …

David: Then it was me and somebody else

Lynne: Would Paul Allen (who purchased Clapton’s Brownie for his Experience Music Project museum) have been one of them?

Drew: I don’t know Paul and I don’t know if his people were there. …

The Burst Brothers meet and greet after the Christie’s auction.

David:

We greeted people for 30-40 minutes, right after the auction. People wanted to congratulate us and they wanted to see the guitars. We were fortunate enough to hold the guitars and have people come up and meet us and take our picture and get a close look at the guitar.

In fact, one of my favorite stories to tell is, there was quite a long line, and people from Christie’s escorted this lady up to the front of the line. She was introduced to Dave and I as Clapton’s first and most loyal fan all through his career. I don’t remember her name. She was an attractive woman, probably in her 60s or late 50s, but she was very pleasant and she was from London and she got really close to Dave and I. And I think I was holding Blackie and she said, ‘Congratulations. I’ve never been this close to Blackie and I’d like to see it.’ And I said, ‘here,’ and I took the guitar and put it in her hands and her knees started going and I could see she started to pass out, so I grabbed under her right arm with one hand and the guitar with the other, and the Christie’s guys caught her before she went down. That was a pretty powerful moment, because that guitar had that much magic that it made someone pass out. That’s pretty impressive.

Lynne: I bet the adrenalin was high when you were bidding.

Both: It was.

David: Until that gavel finally came down, it was a very long 10 seconds.

The Eric Clapton Cream-era Gibson ES-335. Photo by Robert M. Knight.

Drew:

I thought we did really good on the Harrison guitar, which I personally, growing up as a Beatle fan and Harrison fan, felt was an accomplishment on its own. That was early in the auction. I was feeling great about it. ‘We just bought a guitar that George Harrison played and owned and gave to Eric Clapton. And Eric Clapton used it. How cool is that?’ Then the 335 (Clapton’s Cream-era Gibson ES-335) came up. …

David: We got the 335. I was surprised we got that.

Lynne: Why?

David: Well, for one, I had to go over what our limit was (laughs). It was like, ‘Woah, boy, this better be good.’

Drew: Dave made the executive decision. Someone else bid our limit and Dave goes, ‘You know what, that guitar is too important for us to let it go. We’ll try …’

David: I also looked at it like we did really well on the Harrison so I figured I had a little extra to play with. It was an on-the-spot decision.

Drew: It was a little gamble but it paid off

David: And I was surprised because if somebody had gone one more bid, they would have had the guitar ‘cause I had really hit the limit – it was like, ‘oh, boy ….’

Lynne: Did you buy them with the understanding at the time that you would be able to replicate them?

Drew: No.

David: You know, that was the hope, but nothing was confirmed with any of the manufacturers or anything at that point. But it seemed feasible that it might be able to be done that way.

The Burst Brothers with Billy Gibbons. Photo by Robert M. Knight.

Drew:

But we all agreed that it would be something – that Guitar Center would be able to display these and let the public see them rather than being locked up somewhere.

David: Either way, it a charity event. It was all going to a good cause. And though people always go, ‘Oh, it was a charity event, you wrote it all off,’ the fact is, you couldn’t write any of that off. People didn’t realize that, but it was an out-of-the-country charity.

Drew: It wasn’t tax deductible.

David: A lot of people went in with the thought, ‘Oh, it’s a charitable thing, I can probably write it off.’

Drew: What we need to point out is how significant this was for Eric Clapton to let these pieces go, and especially the 335. He felt that by him ponying up some of his most known pieces that meant the most to him, he would get other people involved in his cause. And he was right.

David: And it did. Other people donated.

Drew: Other people saw how serious he was, and I think probably one of the thrills for Dave and I is … Lee Dickson is Eric Clapton’s guitar tech and has been for many years. He’s a great guy and Dave and I have known him and have a good relationship with him. After the auction, Lee came onstage to congratulate Dave and I from Eric Clapton and the message that we got was, ‘Eric wanted me to congratulate you and let you guys know that you’re the second owner of this 335, because he bought it new.’

David: In the Yardbirds, when he first made some money.

Drew: And it had double significance, being the guitar that he recorded the great solos and songs on, but also it was one of his first new, expensive guitars. For him to let that guitar go was significant. It hurt for him to part with that guitar.

David: Lee was crying. He was fighting back tears.

Drew: It was a very emotional thing. And to this day, as significant as Blackie is and as great as Blackie is, I personally feel that the 335, in my world, is more significant and is probably as valuable, or more.

Lynne: What are your personal holy grail guitars, or were those it?

David: That we’ve purchased?

Lynne: No, that might be out there, that you would still like to get your hands on. Or was it one of these?

Eric Clapton and The Burst Brothers at the Hollywood RockWalk of Fame

David:

The 335 for me, my age … I started playing electric guitar because of Cream and because of the Cream farewell documentary. I saw that when I was 12 or something on PBS, and I remember him playing that guitar. And the first guitar I ever owned, electric guitar I ever owned, was a Japanese copy of that, which was way too big for me and I didn’t last with it very long, because it was this really big guitar. But I had to have it because he was playing that. So for me, that guitar would be it. Who’s guitar? I can’t think of somebody else’s …

Drew: A lot of people ask me at the Holy Grail Exhibit, ‘What guitar would I take?’ And it would be the 335.

David: (To Drew) But if you could buy one’s guitar, it would be what? John Lennon’s guitar?

Drew: Personally, I connect with John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix. In my guitar-playing career I saw Elvis when I was a young kid, and said, ‘I want to do that when I grow up.’ Then it was the Beatles, it was John Lennon who I identified with. And then when I heard Jimi Hendrix, that changed everything, although Jimi Hendrix didn’t have one guitar that would be it. Maybe John Lennon’s Rickenbacker or something like that would be my holy grail. Another guitar player that inspired and influenced me was Chuck Berry. Growing up in the ‘50s and ‘60s, I thought Chuck Berry was the one to try to imitate. But in this exhibit, yeah, the 335 Clapton guitar would be my pick.

Lynne: Does Yoko still have the Rickenbacker?

Drew: Well, there’s some controversy that it was stolen and refinished and brought back. But I think, and I’m not an expert on the guitar, but I think John Lennon refinished it himself. It was a natural finish. And he had the Hoffner factory finish it black. I think he might have sanded down the natural finish and had the guitar turned black. And then there was one other one, so I’m a little …

David: We’re not sure where that guitar really is.

Lynne: This is the only place these (three Crossroads Auction) guitars have traveled to?

Drew: I think so.

David: Yeah. They’ve never been out of the safe. Well, we just recently started putting them on display at Hollywood (the Hollywood Guitar Center store).

Drew: We’ve had some interviews with them where they came out where we had Brinks – Brinks had to be involved to pull them out of the safe. They’ve been on the Hollywood guitar floor on Sunset Boulevard at the Hollywood Guitar Center.

David: We bring ‘em out for an interview here and there.

Drew: But this is the first time they’ve been displayed, all three of them together at one time.

David: Or traveled anywhere.

Stevie Ray Vaughan’s Lenny. Photo by Robert M. Knight.

Drew:

And it’s very impressive to see the three of them. We haven’t talked about Lenny, Stevie Ray’s guitar. But I think we should.

David: It’s a good guitar. Actually, they’re all good guitars. The 335’s an especially good one.

Drew: Stevie Ray was obviously a gifted, enlightened guitar player.

David: There’s a lot of vibe in that guitar (Lenny). You can feel it if you get a chance to sit and play it. It’s got a lot of vibe.

Drew: And we were expecting to pay a bit more for that than we did, because the Vaughan family – we have a good relationship with Jimmie Vaughan. And they’re kind of a private family. …

David: It was the only guitar they’ve let go out of the family. It was for the cause … one of the cool things about the guitars, though, is the cases they’re with. For me. The Cream case, just having Cream stenciled on there, or the SRV. A lot of times it’s the case that gets you. When we first looked at the George Harrison, the guitar was cool, but the case with his Hare Krishna decal on there, it was amazing the reaction people have just from the cases alone. I had to get that in there. I always think about the cases.

Drew: The road case on the Strat (Blackie), instead of putting Eric Clapton, it was Duck Brothers, is that correct?

David: Yeah, it was just kind of a joke. Inside-joke nickname they used to…

Drew: So people that would see it traveling would know what it was. But yeah, the cases were significant. We’ll talk about Stevie, but I’ve got one story that I want to add before we do. At the very end of the Christie’s auction night, we had Lee Dickson onstage with us and he stayed with us to answer questions and give people information. He was very helpful after the auction, after we purchased the pieces. We were onstage with him. At the very end, after all the people were cleared out of Christie’s, it was just Lee, myself, Dave Belzer, and maybe three Christie’s people. And I was standing talking to Lee, who was facing me, and in the back, in my direct sight, was, I guess, more of a janitor or a pick-up person that worked for Christie’s, that came – and you gotta remember, during the auction the auction folks wore white gloves and there was a spectacle made of these, the music … they presented it really well the way they had the music come in and they had “Layla” playing with the 335. It was just all brilliantly staged the way Christie’s did it. If you can picture all that and the excitement, everybody at the edge of their chairs, waiting to see these guitars. At the very end of the night, we put the 335 back in the original Cream case, and out comes this little old man with a cart …

David: A laundry cart like you would see in a hotel.

Drew: A laundry cart like you would see in a New York hotel on casters with, like, cloth holding it together. And he came out at the very end, and while we’re talking to Lee Dickson, he took the 335 case and put it in his cart upside down, headstock first. If Lee Dickson would have seen that …

David: Oh, he would have just absolutely flipped. It was just this comical, like Carol Burnett kind of thing, and he started to pick the cases up and put them into his laundry thing …

Drew: I thought that was the end, to cap off the whole night, to see the reality of ‘it’s just a guitar’ and a guy not even knowing how to put it away.

David: ‘Well, it’s gotta go back down into storage, they told me to pick it up.’ He didn’t know who’d just won it or … he just knew the auction was over and it was cleanup time.

Lynne: You said you had a Stevie story.

Drew: Well, this Stevie thing, it was just a really touching thing. First of all, I think that Eric appealed to Stevie’s family…

David: … for the cause, the charity,

Drew: Exactly.

David: For the Crossroads facility and recovery, especially since Stevie had gone through it.

Drew: Stevie had gone through it. Right. So they wanted to help and what they did was … the #1 Stevie Ray guitar was destroyed by a lighting truss falling on it, and it ended up in pieces, so they felt that this was probably the next most significant guitar. And we were scheduled to be able to budget more for this guitar than we ended up actually buying it for because I think at that point, people didn’t want to compete with Guitar Center; they realized that we had the budget to really buy these guitars. Was that the last one or was that before Blackie?

David: Blackie was the last one. Stevie Ray was the third guitar.

Stevie Ray Vaughan with Lenny. Photo by Robert M Knight.

Drew:

So, I don’t think a lot of people came up against us too heavy on this one, so we bought it at a fair price. A lot of money, but you know, all things considered … I remember, we didn’t really open that case up and handle that guitar. It came back to Hollywood and the first time we handled it, we were doing an interview, and I opened the case up and I sat down on a stool and strummed this guitar. I got goosebumps and I just got this incredible vibe of where it came from and who had used it and how – I admire Stevie Ray as a great musician and I got to see him play and he was inspiring to watch. And feeling this guitar and playing it was a very special moment for me. I didn’t even feel I was worthy to play the guitar. I played it for a little while and put it back in the case. But when we talked to Jimmie Vaughan about it, he said that no one ever opened that guitar case up or anything after Stevie passed away– and we actually talked to Rene, who was Stevie’s tech at the time, and … Rene’s last name is, um?

David: Martinez?

Drew: Martinez. Great guy, and just a great guitar tech and good guitar player, and he was really into helping Stevie with his guitars, he would mod these guitars and make them just perfect for Stevie. And we talked to him about it too, and he also shared that no one really opened those guitars up after that.

Lynne: You were the first person who had actually played it since Stevie?

Drew: Maybe. It sure felt like it when I strummed it and got the feeling that I got. It was an honor.

Lynne: I know that feeling. It’s like walking into the Woody Guthrie archives or something.

Drew: Yeah.

Lynne: Anything else you want to add?

Guitar Center’s Hollywood Vintage Room

Drew:

We’re fortunate to have been involved with Eric and his foundation and his cause and his incredible guitars, and for someone who loves guitars like we do, this has been a great honor and a privilege, and we have a lot of respect for the guitars and for what we do. It’s been a real thrill.

Lynne: One more question – how do you feel about the fact that you probably have singlehandedly helped to drive up the vintage market?

David: How’s that? (laughs) In what respect?

Lynne: You and the Japanese buyers and others who have really made these things more valuable than houses?

Drew: I don’t think that we had anything to do with that. I think that we have just really gone after the cleanest, best examples of a piece, and if we paid a little more than the next guy, it’s because we understood the significance of it. And I think everyone who’s ever bought a guitar from us has done extremely well. And there’s a lot of people here at the show (Dallas Guitar Festival) that are really grateful that we’re able to find their guitars because they thought they were paying a lot of money for guitars 10 years ago, and they realize now that that was a 10th of what they’re worth today.

David: Are you saying that because of what was paid for Blackie?

Lynne: Not particularly for that. Obviously, we all know the vintage market has climbed and continues to climb, and now something from the ‘70s is considered vintage, and …

Drew: It would be nice to say we’re responsible for that but we’re just one of the many people who have been recognizing good guitars and buying them and selling them. Dave and I, when we partnered up, we shared the same type of feeling; we wanted to make the experience of finding the right guitar and finding the person who wanted that guitar and putting the two together. That’s what we felt we could be really good at, and the experiences –

David: But it should be fun. It should be fun and a win/win situation for everybody.

The Burst Brothers with Carlos Santana

Drew:

It wasn’t all about the money, it was more about the guitars and the people, and when you get a call from someone like Eric Clapton or Carlos Santana saying ‘I just used the guitar that you found me and it was the most incredible thing. I had a special night because the guitar was magic.’ That’s our reward. And it’s been great. We’ve been fortunate to deal with a lot of the greatest guitar players.

David: And a lot has to deal with just the fact that we try to buy the cleanest, the best, and I think, too, that we both play, so we know what a good guitar is. We’ve been doing this for a long time.

Lynne: Do you think the Guitar Center will wind up making a museum of some sort?

David: Well, you know in some sense, the Hollywood Vintage Room is a museum, plus, we have the (Hollywood) RockWalk there too that has quite a lot of celebrity stuff in it, from Stevie Ray Vaughan to Eric Clapton, so …

Drew: That Hollywood Sunset store is a place of interest for the city of Hollywood. There are bus tours that stop there on a regular basis that look at the Hollywood RockWalk of Fame with all of the musicians’ handprints in cement. So it already is like that. It’s considered a must-see for anyone coming into the country, or to California.

Lynne: What’s your relationship with the museums? You said you’ve worked with the Experience Music Project and I would assume you’ve communicated with the Rock Hall as well.

Drew: We really haven’t worked with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame …

David: The Fender Museum, we’ve loaned some stuff to the Fender. I don’t think we’ve loaned anything to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Drew: We did an exhibit called Cars & Guitars of Rock ‘n’ Roll at the Peterson Auto Museum. Billy Gibbons co-hosted it with Guitar Center, and it was a great event. We had Eric Clapton’s guitars and cars, besides Jimmie Vaughan’s; we had Guns N’ Roses, we had Van Halen’s stuff. We had a lot of people who wanted to be involved.

The Burst Brothers at a guitar show surrounded by what they love

David:

As time goes on, vintage guitars or rock ‘n’ roll guitars from the ‘50s, ‘60s will become more prominent in museums, just like a Stradivarius is. It’s like what’s happening with the auction houses. Now you see a Christie’s catalog for fine musical instruments and there’s a ‘52 Telecaster on the cover or a ‘59 Les Paul on the cover. You wouldn’t have seen that four or five years ago.

Lynne: Do you guys have personal collections?

David: We’ve both been playing, and yeah, we have some guitars. (Laughs.)

Drew: I’m so old that I had guitars before they were considered vintage. They were just old, used guitars. My mom thought I was crazy for trading new ones for the old ones when I was a kid, but I always preferred older guitars with some kind of vibe. And I still do. … Guitars are meant to be enjoyed and played. Music and guitars have always been my passion and I think we all have a common bond, people who enjoy music and like playing guitars. It makes it enjoyable for us to do this. We’re around guitars 24/7 and we’re not sick of it yet.

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