Gibson EB humbucker, bakelite cover 1958-62

As fitted to the earliest versions of the Gibson EB-0 and EB-2 basses from 1958 onwards, and the EB-3 and Epiphone Newport from 1961. The basic construction of the pickup coils did not change, beyond this time, though the covers and means of mounting did. Basses were only fitted with this bakelite cover between 1958 and 1962, after which they upgraded to nickel. The images below show the mounted pickup, a 1961 Gibson EB3 with the pickup cover removed, and the underside of the cover itself.

Black covers were fitted to the EB-0 and the EB-2, until it was replaced by the EB-3 in 1961. The EB-3 cover, however, was silver-coloured, but with very poor-wearing coating; finding one with significant silvering today is very unusual indeed. When nickel covers were introduced, they were immediately fitted to the EB-3, with last stocks of bakelite covers being used up on the EB-0 and Newport. The mounting screw spacing of bakelite covered humbuckers differs from either of the later metal versions; replacing the pickup cover with a non original part would require new mounting holes.

The pickup itself consisted of two coils wound on a metal former sharing an axis perpendicular to the length of the guitar, hence the nickname sidewinder. An Alnico magnet is attached either end of the coils, with polepieces in the very centre. This coils were very heavily wound, producing a loud, fat sound, and having a D.C. resistance of around 30kΩ give or take an ohm or two; in the early days these coils were hand-wound in Kalamazoo, so there is greater variance from pickup to pickup than would be expected today.