Tortoise Shell Picks

[Paddy1951]

Picks are often a subject of discussion on AGF.
Genuine tortoise shell picks are supposed to be the ultimate pick. Of course, they are rare now and I believe it is no longer legal to harvest real tortoise shell. Like ivory, that is a good thing.

My question is, has anybody played with a real tortoise shell pick? If so, do you think they are as great as they supposed to be?

Question 2
Why are tortoise shell picks supposed to be so good? What is it about them?



Question 3
I have heard stories of how people have purchased antique items made from tortoise shell and used the material from these items to fashion guitar picks. Has anybody done this? Is it legal? Was it worthwhile?

[Mandobart]

Over on another forum where I spend most of my time, this is a taboo subject and is immediately shutdown. There is a vendor at one of the well-known festivals I attend who sells tortoise shell picks he makes from old combs, hair clips, etc. I'm told this is actually illegal. Nonetheless he sets up his booth there every year. I have tried most of his stuff. To my hands and ears the Wegen M200 still sounds, feels and plays better, and his picks are around $70.

[Wade Hampton]

Paddy, last question first: yes, it's possible to purchase antique tortoiseshell items like jewelry boxes and trays and cut them up to convert them into flatpicks. It's also legal. However, it's questionable whether it's then legal to sell those picks to others.

It's one of those things where you could probably get away with doing so, but advertising it on a website would be fairly stupid and asking for trouble.

Back to question 1: yes, I've owned a few tortoiseshell picks, some of which I found in old instrument case pockets, some of which I found at old music stores in the 1970's, a few of which I found in Tokyo music stores in 1985, when they were still legal in Japan.

What's it like playing with tortoiseshell picks? I can tell you without any prevarication or dodging of the question that some people really like them, but I don't, particularly. There's a "click" when you hit the strings that tortoiseshell picks produce, and I prefer the cleaner, "click-free" sound of celluloid picks.

The tortoiseshell picks that I did like were not the thick rigid ones that are currently fashionable in some bluegrass circles, but ones that had just a bit of flex to them. The problem with those semi-flexible tortoiseshell picks is that they break after a while. I no longer own any because I broke all I had by the mid-1980's. As a result, I haven't used tortoiseshell picks in some thirty years.

Don't miss them a bit, actually.

When I was in high school in the Midwest there was a cult for Coors beer, and people started heading west just to buy cases of it to bring back to their buddies. I remember when I got a chance to drink my first Coors at a party and we all oohed and ahh-ed appreciatively. You couldn't get it in most parts of the country, and so it MUST be great, right? (Remember the plot of "Smokey & The Bandit," all these yahoos traversing the country to go snag Coors beer and bring it back to Atlanta? That sort of thing actually happened.)

But once Coors became more widely available, the mystique evaporated, because it turns out that it's just another watery industrial beer.

Same thing with Krispy Kreme doughnuts. About ten or fifteen years ago I started seeing people getting all excited about Krispy Kreme doughnuts, even though we didn't have any of their shops up here in Alaska. But people were importing them to sell for fundraisers, and carried on as if they were the most delicious thing imaginable.

I tried one and it was.........just a doughnut. Not even a particularly good doughnut, though I thought that must be because it had had to travel from Seattle to get to Alaska and wasn't perfectly fresh as a result.

A year or so ago a Krispy Kreme shop finally opened up in Anchorage, and I dutifully went so I could try some absolutely fresh Krispy Kremes.

Which proved to be absolutely fresh mediocre doughnuts.

Is there a point to this tedious digression? Yes, there is, and it's that - to my ears, anyway - tortoiseshell picks are kind of like the mediocre Coors-flavored Krispy Kreme doughnuts that people get excited about mainly because of their mystique. Some very fine musicians build their entire picking style around these technically illegal shards of endangered sea turtle shells, and while those picks work fine, I don't think they're as musically awesome as many people assume they must be.

My own lack of enthusiasm for tortoiseshell picks will undoubtedly irk some fine musicians, some of whom will be annoyed enough to respond in this thread. Which is fine with me. But having tried them and used them for a while I honestly believe tortoiseshell picks to be overrated and not worth breaking the law to use.

Hope that makes sense.


Wade Hampton Miller

[ALBD]

Picks are indeed a popular subject to some. Have you searched this? Or you can check back, I suspect one of the many pick threads will be bumped soon enough.....

[Silurian]

I don't think I've ever seen one, never mind play with one. I plan to keep it that way. Even if they made a guitar sound as enchanting as Homer's Sirens I couldn't care less.

[Paddy1951]

Wade, thanks for your response on tortoise shell picks. Your reference to Coors beer made me smile and laugh out loud.

I was stationed at Fort Carson, Colorado for a while in the 70's. When I came home on leave, to points east of the Mississippi, I would bring a case of tall cans of Coors with me. Ooooh! Friends would get excited about that. It nearly killed me to do so 'cause 24 tall cans had considerable weight. I had a special piece of luggage that would hold 24 cans and was quite tough. The thing was if I brought the Coors, I could carry nothing else. I only got away with that because I was in uniform.

Looking back, it 's funny because... Yeah Coors IS just a watered down, mediocre beer.

[Silly Moustache]

Hi Paddy,
I've got boxes ful of genuine tortoiseshell picks (Yes Hawksbill turtle) Back in the '60s, possibly the '70s you could buy them in music shops along with celluloid things (which were retty terrible, so you went with the TS.

In the '70s I got into the British bluegrass scens and there were small festivals and workshops where I met a character known to all as "King" Arthur. He was an eccentric chap who was the first to import mandolins from the Czech Republic which quickly became highly respected for their long lived violin family making skills and artistry - being a communist country where they loved American music but couldn't access American instruments.

Arthur also perused the Saturday and Sunday junk markets (called "Fleamarkets" in France), and people who found old Victorian or Georgian items with tortoiseshell would sell them to him. No-one will ever know how many Victorian vanity sets or Georgian cigarettes cases he destroyed but he'd rip them apart and fashion them into picks of a more more appropriate thickness for hard hitting bluegrass folk.

I usually bought five or six from him every time we met.
He had stamp collectors books with pages and pages full of picks which we'd just flick through to find the picks that we fancied.

Again, I have a largish box of these things.

Slowly I went away from them because even then they were quite expensive at £10-25, and they would break or wear, and Martin picks worked OK for me.

Then - far more recently, the Blue Chip thing emerged and I managed to obtain one somewhat resentfully, determined to prove them worthless.

By then the only TS pick that I still commonly used was on my mandolin, and when I compared a BC "TAD" pick to my TS pick I foud the new Vespal thing faster cleaner and louder.

I made a considerable investment in TS over the years but as it is illegal to sell it - they just sit there in my pick boxes, as I have now made a considerable investment in BC picks for guitar and mandolin.

Remember, back in the day, before plastics were a "thing" the only alrernative to natural products was celluloid and , I never found a celluloid pick which didn't crack or "squeak" when it got worn.

So... in answer to the question, TS picks really aren't always the best possible, not now anyway.

[Silly Moustache]

I just though it would be fun to show some of those TS picks that I have.

The ones on the left were "commercially" made, and just bought in music shops for pennies.

Most of them are far too thin and in ridiculous shapes - because I didn't know what I wanted back then.

On the right there is a selection of TS picks made by "King Arthur" and bought by me over the years. The little markers on them are the app. thicknesses measured by me by a nearly accurate micrometer, and you may see the thumbpicks he converted with TS facings.

Arthur died some years ago, but somewhere there are those enormous stamp collector's "stock books" full of his "handmade" TS picks- about twenty per page and about 30 pages each.

[Murphy Slaw]

Very cool, Moustache.

I've never played one to my knowledge, but I'm old enough to have done it and not remember.....

Wade, you are such a great writer. And you're right. I too lived through the whole Coors thing and actually lived in Arizona and drank truckloads of it in the 70's. I never did "get" Krispy Krème.

You always want the things you can't have.

[mercy]

I used to have one when I flatpicked. It was better than any other pick at the time. I have not liked the feel of any of the modern picks so I havent played with them. That being said, the tone of TS is special and they stick to the fingers so they dont slip around. I dont like the real thick ones but more like a medium Fender. In my opinion there is nothing better. They were available so it had nothing to do with the Coors phenomenon. If you can get one do it. I dont believe in things going to waste. I mean they are already picks and before that they were products like combs. I believe in using Brazilian rosewood if its in your stash similarly.

[HHP]

Even if it was the absolute best material ever, I would not use it. I hear stories of people selling picks supposedly made from "combs and hairbrushes" and I would reckon its 50/50 that the material was re-made versus poached. Which one doesn't matter much. In one case you are directly encouraging poaching and in the other, you are indirectly encouraging poaching.

I doubt there is anything tonally available in any guitar that can't be extracted with the vast choice of materials available now.

If I was a poacher, I'd go for the "old combs and hairbrushes" story myself.

[Mr Bojangles]

This spring we completed a tour of the South, and refused to pass by a Krispy Kreme shop. I usually ate three each visit. Love at first bite!

Yes, I have used TS picks, but I prefer Fender X-heavy celluloid. Go figure...

[JayBee1404]

When I first began my guitar journey, back around 1961, TS picks were de rigeur. I had several, some like those in Silly Moustache's photo, kinda rectangular with a slight 'point' on one end (which I bought because Bert Weedon, British band/session-player and author of the 'Play In A Day' book, used them), and others the more oval, pointy shape. As celluloid and nylon picks appeared more readily, I 'lost' or otherwise disposed of the TS picks because they were too stiff and 'clacky' on the strings, and I've never had or wanted a TS pick since the late '60s.

To my ears and hands, the BlueChip (Vespel) picks, along with Charmed Life (Casein) and Red Bear picks easily beat (admittedly only my memories of) TS for both tone and speed off the string. But I accept that others may well disagree.

The usual disclaimers apply......IMHO, YMMV etc.

[Mr. Jelly]

I still like Coors beer in the stubby bottles.

[TomB'sox]

Originally Posted by Wade Hampton

Yes, there is, and it's that - to my ears, anyway - tortoiseshell picks are kind of like the mediocre Coors-flavored Krispy Kreme doughnuts that people get excited about mainly because of their mystique.


Wade Hampton Miller

Wade perhaps if you did not order the Coors-flavored Krispy Kreme doughnuts you may indeed enjoy them more? Chocolate is popular I have been told.