I had the chance very recently to try out a real 1962 Les Paul (note: SG). It belonged to a friend's shop, and was on sale for a ridiculously good price (5kUSD?) For fellow Singaporeans, the shop is Guitar Connection in Excelsior Shopping Center.

The guitar was a bit beat up, but very playable. Pickguard was gone. Trussrod cover says "Les Paul" rather than the current "SG" bit. Tuners were also replaced with Gotoh stuff, I think.

However, the pickups were still 100% original, but the electronics had been changed. The pots and caps were replaced with some incidental cheap stuff along the way of the lifespan on the guitar. I think this was done before the current enthusiasm of good quality stuff. But the pots were 500k rated. Small tiny green 0.22 caps.

The pickups were quite beat up as well. I should have taken pics. The pups were bulging at the side, and the bobbins were a bit warped already. But the pups did look intact, and no sign of rewinding was visible (though I must stress, I'm not an expert, so I can only judge based on what I see)

Honestly, tonewise, all that had been changed didn't seem to affect what I was hearing, which was REALLY NICE! It was hollow sounding, organic, dynamic, and yet, quite hot. I didn't measure them, but they definately saturated easier than my Skatterbranes. I know PAFs ( or in this case, possible early patent numbers) were subjective, and one set differed from one to the other. But this was definately a nice set indeed.

What did surprise me, was how fat they actually sounded. They did sound like A2s or possibly degaussed A5s (over 40 years?) but had a nice clarity to them. Creamy too! They're like what I'd imagine a set of SD APHs would sound like, if they were not muddy. Mind you, this was in a full mahogany SG, and were already not muddy, just fat. I think in a conventional Les Paul, they could be a bit brighter.

So, this was my first encounter with vintage PAFs. Hope I get to try more someday.