  seth lover (january 1, 1910 in kalamazoo, michigan &ndash; january 31, 1997 in garden grove, california) is most famous for inventing the humbucker or hum-cancelling electric stringed instrument pickup, most often used on the electric guitar. lover's most famous humbucker design () was the p.a.f. (patent applied for) designed while working for gibson musical instruments in 1955. this pickup was utilised in a range of gibson guitars, most notably the les paul model. another of his designs, known as the fender wide range humbucking pickup (wrhp), was used in the three telecaster models (deluxe, custom, and thinline) produced by fender in the 1960-1970s. the wide range pickup was also used in the far less popular fender starcaster. before lover, electric guitarists were forced to cope with the 60-cycle hum received by single coil pickups. it was in the mid-'50s, while working as an amplifier designer at gibson guitars, that lover figured out how to wire two coils electrically out of phase and with reversed magnetic polarities. the effect was to cancel the hum before it reached the amp and the result was the birth of the humbucking pickup. lover applied for the patent on the humbucking pickup in 1955 and it was finally granted in 1959 (u.s. 2,896,491). during this five-year period, gibson adhered a "patent applied for" sticker to the underside of their humbucker pickups. these "p.a.f." pickups are the most collectable and desirable pickups today, fetching upwards of $1,000 each among vintage guitar collectors. while working under ted mccarty at gibson, lover was also involved in guitar design. he liked to tell how he helped contribute to the design of the famous "flying v." lover said that he thought up the design as a way to lean the guitar against a wall without it tipping over. lover worked for gibson from 1952 to 1967 as a design engineer. in 1967, he transferred to fender musical instruments where he worked until 1975 as a project engineer. in addition to his two gibson patents, he authored three more at fender -- two for loudspeaker cabinets and one for an electric piano pickup. he retired to the southern california town of garden grove where he lived quietly with lavone, his wife of 59 years. seymour w. duncan, a guitar pickup designer and manufacturer, considered lover his "humbucker mentor." the two were associated for nearly 20 years. in 1994, duncan and lover jointly produced the seth lover model pickup, a re-creation of the "patent applied for" humbucker. after numerous full-page ads, namm show appearances, and magazine interviews, 
1910_births 1997_deaths People_from_Kalamazoo,_Michigan