as an SG guy I really recommend the later T-tops, apart from Cream and the Doors its more the sound you expect like late period Zep and early ACDC, that said antiquities and even the lowly pearly gates sound pretty good for not much money. My favorite copies I've heard are the 70s Dry Z humbuckers by maxon followed by their Ibanez Super 70. Shockingly good. You have to hunt those up. Then there's replicas costing a lot more. Hundreds of bucks per pickup. Which I'm sure are great.... really great. This one company sourced original metal and stuff from the old supplier and owns a bunch of Gibson's winding machines. Throbak I think? Although Duncan owns an original Leesona from Gibson too, so there's that too.
Original PAFs vary a lot but they mainly have a few thigns in common tonally from the typically mismatched coils, so what you're expecting may not be what you get in an original one. They sued different magnet grades and sizes over the years before settling on short A5 for the T-top. I've had the opportunity to play a number of old Gibsons and many are almost single coil ish.... the surrounding components make a big difference too. The caps aren't that big a deal unless you do a lot with your tone knob but they've got 500k pots of very high quality in the old LPs and SGs. Expect to rebuild the whole control cavity or don't bother.
I really think PAF style pickups are better to LP and 335 type guitars. they offer more harmonics for the pickup to accent under overdrive. The SG is great but its a skinny slab of wood. It already has a focused, dry sound. If you decide to go T-top old ones are great but getting thin on the ground. There are a few repros of good quality out there I'm told. Anything with low, matched winds and a short A5 bar will get there. I have T-tops in my SG and they are the most focused and aggressive rock tone going. None of the ghost tone harmonics sizzle and magic of the earlier pickups, but for a classic SG sound they have that thing. They're uncluttered and sit ina band, retain note clarity under drive. Kick like a mule. If youlike proto punk and glam rock like I do these will do that but you also get thatmainstream 70s radio guitar sound too.
For a point of reference my carve tops either have maxon pickups because they're lawsuit 70s guitars or they have duncan pearlies or just regular burst buckers from gibson that came with them. I think i have one hotrod bridge too, its like a coil from a EVH duncan, forget the model with a coil from his 59 type PAF. That's cool for a hotter than vitnage raw sound with lots of midrange craziness, but otherwise I always turn back to the t-tops. They don't sound that special until the whole mix is going, then they just do a great job of putting your playing forward. Old style pickups aren't there to change your sound that much, Seth and Leo were aiming to give back what you put in as faithfully as possible so all this stuff, tis not night and day like the tone cork sniffers will tell you and I'm a guy with seriously nice guitars and amps.
