1 More

Please note lots marked with a square will be move… Read more

THE HUMBUCKING PICKUPRegardless 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.

GIBSON INCORPORATED, KALAMAZOO, 1959

A SOLID-BODY ELECTRIC GUITAR, LES PAUL CUSTOM

Details

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.)

Special notice

Please note lots marked with a square will be moved to Christie’s Fine Art Storage Services (CFASS in Red Hook, Brooklyn) on the last day of the sale. Lots are not available for collection at Christie’s Fine Art Storage Services until after the third business day following the sale. All lots will be stored free of charge for 30 days from the auction date at Christie’s Rockefeller Center or Christie’s Fine Art Storage Services (CFASS in Red Hook, Brooklyn). Operation hours for collection from either location are from 9.30 am to 5.00 pm, Monday-Friday. After 30 days from the auction date property may be moved at Christie’s discretion. Please contact Post-Sale Services to confirm the location of your property prior to collection. Lots may not be collected during the day of their move to Christie’s Fine Art Storage Services (CFASS in Red Hook, Brooklyn). Please consult the Lot Collection Notice for collection information. Lots made of or including (regardless of the percentage) endangered and other protected species of wildlife are marked with the symbol ~ in the catalogue. This material includes, among other things, ivory, tortoiseshell, crocodile skin, rhinoceros horn, whalebone certain species of coral, and Brazilian rosewood. You should check the relevant customs laws and regulations before bidding on any lot containing wildlife material if you plan to import the lot into another country. Several countries refuse to allow you to import property containing these materials, and some other countries require a licence from the relevant regulatory agencies in the countries of exportation as well as importation. In some cases, the lot can only be shipped with an independent scientific confirmation of species and/or age, and you will need to obtain these at your own cost.

Sale room notice

Please note this lot incorporates material from endangered and/or protected species of wildlife which could result in export restrictions. Please see Paragraph H2(b) of the Conditions of Sale for further information.

Brought to you by

New York

gilmourguitars@christies.com +1 212 636 2000

Lot Essay

The first Les Paul Customs were manufactured with two single-coil pickups, until mid-1957 when Humbucker pickups were first offered on the Les Paul. The change was quickly made that all Customs would have three pickups.
David Gilmour purchased this guitar in December 1979 from Frank Lucido of California Guitar in Ventura, California, during a brief interlude between completing final recording and mixing sessions for The Wall at Producer's Workshop in Los Angeles in November 1979 and beginning rehearsals for the upcoming The Wall Tour in January 1980. Purchased to replace an identical guitar that had been stolen in 1976, Gilmour kept this guitar for studio use.
Gilmour told us: A lot of the guitars, I have to say, I purchased because I saw someone using one and I thought “Oh I love that, I love the look of that,” and I’m sure there was a Smokey Robinson and the Miracles 7in. cover which had him holding a black Gibson Les Paul with three pickups on it. Now this may be false memory, because memory gets a little unreliable these days, but that is my memory and I did want to get one of those, and in fact I did get one of those eventually. I think it got stolen, but I then did find another one which is the one we have now and is being sold.

More from The David Gilmour Guitar Collection

View All