Understanding P-90s
Mar 04, 2022
4 minutes
The P-90’s lineage goes back to the 1930s, when Gibson’s first electric guitar pickup appeared on the ES-150. It became so synonymous with the era’s greatest jazz guitarist that the pickup became universally known as the ‘Charlie Christian’. It pre-dated the development of Alnico magnets, and Gibson’s pickup designers needed massive cobalt magnets to achieve the necessary gauss. The ‘Charlie Christian’ was wound with 38AWG magnet wire and weighed a hefty 2lb.
In 1940, Gibson came up with an unusual diagonally mounted pickup that stretched almost all the way from the neck to the bridge. This had evolved into a shorter version by 1941, with two Alnico bar magnets and a steel keeper bar
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