Plectral Meltdown

[mefoolonhill]

I used to collect guitar picks, and about 30 years ago I acquired a nice little tin to hold them. The tin originally held two miniature bottles of Tennessee whiskey, and it was beautifully crafted and painted. When I moved from the Midwest to upstate New York it got packed away, and was forgotten for three decades, and only found recently. After prying open the lid, I discovered that some sort of chemical reaction had taken place inside, and all the picks had melted and congealed into a psychedelic puddle of plastic. Perhaps one of the picks had a chemical DNA that was incompatible with the others, and it triggered a meltdown that reduced them all to a blob. I'll never forgive myself for casually throwing the blob away and failing to photograph the spectacle. Since I'm now in the fine art business, I probably could have given it a name such as "Cosmic Vortex #39," and put it on a pedestal in the gallery at $375,000. Could have added some important provenance by claiming that one of the picks came from Hendrix or Clapton or Django.

[Charmed Life Picks]

Originally Posted by mefoolonhill

I used to collect guitar picks, and about 30 years ago I acquired a nice little tin to hold them. The tin originally held two miniature bottles of Tennessee whiskey, and it was beautifully crafted and painted. When I moved from the Midwest to upstate New York it got packed away, and was forgotten for three decades, and only found recently. After prying open the lid, I discovered that some sort of chemical reaction had taken place inside, and all the picks had melted and congealed into a psychedelic puddle of plastic. Perhaps one of the picks had a chemical DNA that was incompatible with the others, and it triggered a meltdown that reduced them all to a blob. I'll never forgive myself for casually throwing the blob away and failing to photograph the spectacle. Since I'm now in the fine art business, I probably could have given it a name such as "Cosmic Vortex #39," and put it on a pedestal in the gallery at $375,000. Could have added some important provenance by claiming that one of the picks came from Hendrix or Clapton or Django.

Fool, I think you're on to something. Tell them it's a long-lost Kandinsky.

scott

[Wade Hampton]

Celluloid picks are made from a variant of the same basic material as nitrocellulose lacquer and also dynamite (that liquid nitroglycerin stuff, used to generate tension in endless TV shows and movies? Yet another variant.)

Many types of plastic release plasticizer chemicals into the air in a process called "off-gassing," so what seems likely to me is that you unintentionally placed celluloid picks in a sealed container with other, incompatible plastics and had a nasty little chemical reaction.

Just be glad it didn't burst into flames. Seriously, while that's thankfully a rare occurrence, it has happened.

So count your blessings.


Wade Hampton Miller