Seymour Duncan Retro Antiquity Humbucker Neck

The original boutique humbucker set makes your Les Paul look sound priceless.

The Antiquity neck humbucker delivers an articulate, yet mellow tone that results from a perfectly balanced frequency response that combines a soft, sweet treble attack with a warm, full sounding low-end. The custom aged alnico 2 bar magnet creates an airy openness to the top-end that gives chords clarity and articulation, while the vintage output coils really bring out the rich harmonic content. Single notes have a beautiful singing quality with just the right amount of treble emphasis.

Key features include our specially manufactured 42AWG plain enamel mag-wire, nickel silver cover, 2.5-inch alnico 2 bar magnet, custom machined metal spacer & maple spacer, single conductor push-back braided lead wire, and nickel silver bottom plate with long mounting legs. Staying true to the original Gibson P.A.F., these humbuckers are not wax potted which takes you right to the edge of harmonic breakup. For that unmistakable vintage mojo, we wind every Antiquity humbucker on Seymour’s original Leesona winding machine from the early Gibson factory in Kalamazoo, MI.

At Seymour Duncan, we have a 40-year archive of data on pickup design, detailing every nuance, down to the smallest detail. This deep knowledge is what gives our legendary Antiquity pickups their authentic vintage tone.

The Antiquity line’s story goes back to the 1990s, a particularly unique time in guitar history. ‘Shred’ guitars were on a bit of a decline, and the vintage guitar market was huge. When they weren’t able to get their hands on the actual vintage guitars they coveted so dearly, guitarists began to relic their own instruments. So, Seymour created the Antiquities to give those guitarists the aged look, tone, and response of the pickups found in the instruments of the 50s and 60s that they so revered.

Because Seymour is so detail-oriented, our Antiquities had to be exactly like the originals, down to the finest details. Seymour pulled from his 40-plus-year archive of data on pickup design, with insight on every nuance, to ensure that every facet of the Antiquity pickups was authentic and vintage accurate. If player feedback and the thousands of guitarists around the world who rely on their Antiquities are any indication, we think Seymour nailed it.

What Seymour didn’t anticipate was how popular these pickups would become among guitarists playing newer guitars. We quickly began hearing from guitar builders and players around the world who wanted our Antiquity pickups with a new, pristine look, rather than an aged, relic’d look. So, we created the Antiquity Retrospec’d series – all the beloved Antiquity tone of yesteryear in a brand new, cosmetically non-aged look.