Gibson has launched a limited edition Custom Shop replica set of the Greenybuckers, the iconic PAFs found in Greeny, the 1959 Les Paul Standard owned by the late Peter Green, then the late Gary Moore, and now Metallica’s Kirk Hammett.
These electric guitar pickups have been aged by the Murphy Lab to be exactly the same as those found in the original guitar, and have been developed in close collaboration with Hammett.
Available as a set of two, priced £/$449 and strictly limited to just 100 sets worldwide, available exclusively via Gibson, these are the exact same pickups that you would find on the mega-bucks replica of the Murphy Lab Greeny Les Paul Standard, list price $19,999.
Now, this is not the first time Gibson has launched a humbucker cloned from the original holy grail PAF blueprint created by Seth Lover in the mid ‘50s. But there’s something a little different about the Greenybuckers. There’s something different about Greeny.
It is one of the most storied electric guitars of all time, battle-scarred, modded, and one of the few vintage guitars that seems all the more valuable because it is quote/unquote player grade, with its original tuners swapped out for Sperzels, the mismatched control knobs… And all that distress to the finish.
But its magic lies in its pickups and that sui generis out-of-phase tone that comes from the neck pickup’s reverse magnetic polarity. In the middle position, it gives it a sound all its own. Speaking to MusicRadar in 2016, Hammett said it made him think of a Fender Stratocaster when he first tried it out.
“I plugged it into the vintage Marshall amp, turned it up and played it. After about 30 seconds, I thought to myself, ‘Wow, this is not your standard Les Paul…’ and I went to the middle position, because, you know, that’s the revered sound and I started ripping out and I thought to myself, ‘Holy shit, this is a total contradiction.’ It sounded like an incredible Les Paul in the bridge position and in the neck position, but when you put it in the middle position it kind of sounded like a Strat through a 100‑watt Marshall stack!”
The Aged Greenybucker set is not cheap. But say you have one of the Gibson USA Greeny replicas, or even the Epiphone Greeny, and you have begun to put your own wear and tear on the finish and hardware; these could be a primo mod.
Or forget about the Greeny replicas, any Les Paul – and especially any Murphy Lab Les Paul – would be a prime candidate for these.
Under the aged nickel housings, you’ll find a pair of humbuckers with a pair of black bobbins, designed around Alnico II magnets, with two-conductor wiring, unpotted as per the originals. They have a DCR reading of 8.3k at the neck humbucker, 8.7k at the bridge, mojo off the scale.
And they’re available now. For more details, head over to Gibson. And if the price is a little steep, or if you miss out on the limited drop, fear not, the Gibson Pickup Shop still carries the regular Greenybucker Set for $299/£319.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.