70's Herco Thumpicks?

[Jmaulz]

https://www.flickr.com/photos/188969...posted-public/

Hello! Does anyone have any of these old Herco thumbpicks from the 70's for sale? I only have a few left and they're no longer made.
Thanks,
Mike.

[nickv6]

I have a few that I don't use. But they seem pretty freely available on the internet as reasonable prices.....

[Bob Womack]

Here you go: HERCO.


Bob

[frankmcr]

Originally Posted by Jmaulz

https://www.flickr.com/photos/188969...posted-public/

Hello! Does anyone have any of these old Herco thumbpicks from the 70's for sale? I only have a few left and they're no longer made.
Thanks,
Mike.

Herco seems to have switched over to marketing that hybrid flatpick/thumbpick style of theirs.

But apparently they're still making the "Herco Flex" style, which looks sort of like the one in your OP:

https://www.elderly.com/products/her...ylon-thumbpick

[Jmaulz]

[Wade Hampton]

Mike’s thumbpick appears to be made out of celluloid, and all of the thumbpicks currently being made by the Herco branch of the Jim Dunlap product line appead to be nylon, which won’t sound the same.

Looking for new old stock Herco celluloid thumbpicks on eBay is one possibility; I can think of two others.

First, use a micrometer to determine the thickness of the celluloid. That’s going to be a key factor. Then consider these possibilities: one is that you talk to the folks at Blue Chip picks to see if they can make you a thumbpick or two in their high tech high dollar Vespel space age plastic.

I’ve been using celluloid medium-heavy picks as my preferred flatpicks for forty years now, and the only alternative material that gives me a tone that I like as much is Vespel. It sounds as sweet as celluloid but wears infinitely better.

Blue Chip picks are NOT cheap, but if you’re careful to keep track of it and not lose it it’ll pay for itself in its durability within a couple of years.

The other possibility is that you talk to Taylor Mullins at Holter Pickguards about whether he might have some scrap celluloid of the thickness you need to make a few thumbpicks out of. He might be able to make them, for a fee, of course, or he might not want to do that but will sell you enough of the material that you can turn into thumbpicks.

Anyway, however you resolve this, please come back and post in this thread about how you did.

Hope this helps.


Wade Hampton Miller

[PatrickMadsen]

Bill Stokes of Showcase puts out a nice handmade thumb pick made from a celluloid material. They aren't cheap though.

[Wade Hampton]

I had never heard of Showcase picks before, but reading your mention of them I did a Google search and found some at a website I was also previously unaware of, The Pick Shoppe.

Here's a photo of Showcase Torti-Pick Thumbpick:

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They're not made of of celluloid but of pearloid grafted onto a natural buffalo horn striking surface.

Here's that link:

http://www.thepickshoppe.com/store/t...mkmeqhrqjikb15

As mentioned, they're not cheap, costing $22.20 apiece.

While I was on the Pick Shoppe website I noticed that there were John Pearse thumbpicks on there, as well. Even though the late John Pearse and I were good friends and I remain an artist endorser for John Pearse strings and accessories, since I don't use thumbpicks myself I had forgotten entirely that they're part of the product line, and sell for considerably less than the Showcase thumbpick:

˙˙˙

They cost a whopping $1.48 apiece and are made of celluloid, as well. So they might be closer to what Mike needs.

http://www.thepickshoppe.com/store/t...tage-thumbpick

Elderly also sells them, for $1.10 apiece, and I'm sure other online retailers carry them, as well. Here's the product description from the John Pearse/Breezy Ridge website:

"For years John carried his favorite thumbpick wherever he went. It was an old National, with so many miles on it that the logo had worn off completely and the celluloid was yellow and brittle. Everyone who ever tried it declared it was the best pick they ever used. It could take a tired old set of strings and make them sound young again."

"Since no one was making such a pick anymore, John decided to recreate it using an original cutting die from the 20s. The result is a Vintage Thumbpick. In every way, it is the recreation of a classic; hand formed to wrap around your thumb just right and, unlike modern thermo-plastic thumbpicks, it just won't loosen up from the heat of your hand."

While on the Pick Shoppe website I poked around and looked at some of the other thumbpicks they offer.

Clayton makes a celluloid thumbpick for $9.99, but they're out of stock. Blue Chip makes a sort of offbeat hybrid thumbpick (they've changed the design since the last time I looked at them) and they cost $40.00 apiece.

Dunlop makes a few different designs, and this one might interest you:

˙˙˙

Those are $1.40 apiece.

Golden Gate makes one in grained ivoroid, and National has several. I don't know who's making National thumbpicks these days (most likely D'Andrea or Dunlop,) but I do know that for many years their thumbpicks were made for them by Herco. So you might want to check those out, because they might be very similar to what you're looking for.

˙˙˙

http://www.thepickshoppe.com/store/t...nal-thumbpicks

Anyway, Mike, I suspect that your closest match to the old Herco you've been carefully guarding over all these years might be the John Pearse thumbpick, but if I was in your position I think I'd try several of the others, if you haven't already encountered them yourself and disqualified them for not being what you need.

Hope this helps.


Wade Hampton Miller

[EZYPIKINS]

Used a thumb pick back in the 70's. On acoustic and electric as well. Tried again last year. Can't seem to revert back from finger to pick. As for Herco. Used to buy the Herco Flex 40 by the hundreds. For some reason they stopped making them. Best pick I ever used.

[Wade Hampton]

Yeah, I’ve never been able to get any thumbpicks to work for me. When playing clawhammer banjo I sometimes use a single metal fingerpick with its striking surface over my index finger nail, backwards of how fingerpicks are usually used, and that I can manage. But not thumbpicks.


whm

[PhilFish]

I check out every thumbpick thread I see. This has been a good one, thanks for the info and links.
Thumbpicks look so cool to me, maybe because I'm a surfer and there shape.
Been meaning to try the John Pearse

Thanks Wade

[Wade Hampton]

Hey, I’m happy to help, particularly since this isn’t a subset of information that I normally know anything about, not being a cool and groovy thumbpick user like yourselves.

We all know that players who use thumbpicks attract twice as many infatuated members of the opposite sex, but many of us simply lack y’all’s manual dexterity and thus are doomed to be less glamorous in the eyes of the general public...

Seriously, looking into this introduced me to a bunch of stuff I didn’t know, and it led me to finding the Pick Shoppe, which is pretty cool and not an online retailer that I had previously been aware of. To me the best threads are the ones that show me an entirely new perspective on musical instruments and all the many ways they can be played.


whm