Buying P-90 style Pickups on eBay

I am writing this to document the results of my shopping for P-90 style pickups on EBay in a 3 month time period ending August 2008. . Included are the summarized results of watching and analyzing the results of 35 completed auctions. P-90 is the term applied to a single coil style pickup originally developed by Gibson in the late 1940’s but still popular today. In addition to Gibson, many other pickup manufacturers sell this style of pickup, including Duncan, Fralin and Lollar. As I was shopping for a replacement for my Firebird III, I was looking for a black “soap bar” style, not a “dog ear.”

I began watching the results of auctions to get a feel for the market price of various brands of pickups and recorded the results in a database. As a general rule, I only include the results of completed auctions, sold in and available to U.S. customers in U.S. $’s. I exclude auctions that appear fraudulent or fake, don’t have adequate descriptions to confirm the condition or identity of the product. As a warning, buying musical equipment, including pickups, has some degree of risk. I encourage all buyers to be familiar with the products they are buying, check the feedback of sellers and use safe payment methods.  My search string was configured as follows: (P90,P-90,P 90),(Gibson,Duncan,Fralin,Lollar).  This ensured that my search found auctions for the most popular brands of P-90 style pickups.

On to the results! The average ending auction price for the 35 sampled auctions was $59.34. The average shipping cost was $6.46. The highest price paid was $158.50 for a P-90 from a 1971 Gibson Les Paul Special. The lowest price paid was $27.56 for a Gibson P-90 with replaced magnets.

The pricing by brand is as follows:
Brand (qty)        Average      High       Low
Gibson (23)        $62.74         $158.50   $27.56
Duncan (8)         $46.55         $68.77     $31.33
Fralin (1)             $52.80          --             --
Lollar (3)             $69.58         $76.75    $62.00 

I chose a used Gibson P-90 in the original packaging in good condition for $41.00 plus $5.00 shipping (USPS). I paid via paypal.