GIBSON INCORPORATED, KALAMAZOO, 1959, A SOLID-BODY ELECTRIC GUITAR, LES PAUL CUSTOM

GIBSON INCORPORATED, KALAMAZOO, 1959
A SOLID-BODY ELECTRIC GUITAR, LES PAUL CUSTOM
Inlaid at the headstock Gibson, engraved on the truss rod cover Les Paul / CUSTOM and ink stamped to the reverse 9 1398, black finish, with later hardshell case bearing a label inscribed GIBSON LES PAUL CUSTOM 1959 BLACK #9 1398 and SERIAL NO. DG1059; accompanied by facsimile copies of the original sales invoice from California Guitar to Mr. Dave Gilmour, dated 27th September 1979, and the UK customs receipt, dated 1st December 1979, together with a candid color snapshot of David Gilmour playing this guitar in 2001
Length of back 17 1/8 in. (43.4 cm.)

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Pre-Lot Text
THE HUMBUCKING PICKUP
Regardless of the success of the P-90 pickup, an audible problem with electric guitars began to present itself. The P-90, like all single-coil pickups, had the proclivity to amplify electrical interference. As the power output of guitar amplifiers grew so did the volume in interference. As the P-90 aired toward the warmer tones in the spectrum, the interference manifested itself in the form of a background “hum”. The chief electrical engineers at Gibson, Walter Fuller and Seth Lover, set about to solve this growing problem. Seth Lover understood that the problem lay in an electromagnet’s sensitivity to peripheral energy that was inflated by the amplifier’s 60 cycle transformer. His answer was to fabricate a magnetic pickup with two coils in one unit. Each coil bobbin would be wound with wire in opposite directions, one clockwise and the other counter-clockwise. The current now running through the pickup in opposing polarity effectively canceled the interference. It “bucked the hum”. With the coils wired in a series, they produced a stronger and thus a more powerful pickup and the Humbucker was born.
First mounted on Gibson steel guitars in 1955, they were advertised in the Gibson catalogue …with powerful hum-bucking pickups eliminate all electronic disturbances. In early 1957 the Humbucker was next mounted on Gibson’s hollow-body ES-175. When installed later that year on the Les Paul, Gibson now offered the most powerful and tonally balanced electric guitar in history. The Les Paul Model with Humbucker pickups, Tune-O-Matic bridge and stud tailpiece is a guitar design that is universally copied and remains unchanged to this day.