What year were PAF's put in Gibson ES-335 until?

[TRGuy]

I've tried searching about for the answer but I couldn't find it.

Up until what year were PAF's stock in Gibson ES-335's?

Cheers!

 

[FlyingVBlues]

PAF's first appeared in the ES-175TD in 1957. They were stock in the 335 from 1958 to 1962. However, you would still sometimes see 335's with a combination of PAF's and patent number sticker pickups as late as 1964. This is because after Gibson started using the patent number stickers they still continued using the old PAF decals until they were all used.

 

[TRGuy]

Aah ok, thanks for the info.

Sooooo a 1966 ES-335 won't have PAF's then. Would the Patent pickups in a '66 be the same as PAF's, just, after the Patent was confirmed?

Im looking for early 60's ES-335 tone on a bit more of a budget, and i've got my eyes on a ES-335 from '66.

 

[Blauserk]

Im looking for early 60's ES-335 tone on a bit more of a budget, and i've got my eyes on a ES-335 from '66.

This is the best website I'm aware of for this issue:
http://www.provide.net/~cfh/paf.html

A '66 ES-335 may well have the orange-colored wire that is more like a T-top instead of the maroon wire of the PAFs.

In my opinion, you should find a ES-345 made before mid-1967 and yank or bypass the varitone. Gibson made fewer guitars with gold hardware and so the "good" early style Pat # pickups with the maroon wire that are like short-magnet PAFs exist far later in the gold-hardware guitars than for ES-335s. You can get mid-60s ES-345s for less than $4000 all day long, and lemme tell you, they sound damned good--PAF tone in spades. Some of the '67s even have chubby necks; but as you may know, Gibson went to narrower nuts (1 9/16 instead of 1 11/16) sometime in 1965.

Read the posts by J45 in this thread:

http://www.lespaulforum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=117692