"It's a well known fact that lost plectrums transmogrify into wire coat hangers, I've bought dozens of plectrums over the years and lost most, I've never bought a wire hanger and have dozens of the damned things, maybe there's a wizard or which somewhere who can reverse the process."

I remember a sci-fi short story where the next step in the process took place -- a couple of guys who made bicycles discovered a bike they hadn't made among their inventory, and realized that the mass of coat-hangers they used to have had been reduced. They replaced the hangers and within a fortnight or so had yet another bicycle. They turned this into a business plan, and ascribed it to alien life of some sort.

My problem with plectra (flat-picks) is that I use different kinds for different instruments. Basic Fender mediums for guitars, but bone or tortoise-shell for mandolins. I don't like tortoise for guitar, and ditto using plastic on mandos. I prefer brightly-colored plastic for guitars, too, so they show up on most floors, but tortoise-shell is tortoise-shell, so I'm very careful when I have one of the mandolins out, as I really don't want to lose one of the "real" ones.

The ban on real tortoise-shell is a ban on selling them, so I can keep and use the few I have (bought at the Des Moines Music Shop in 1964!) but can't replace broken or lost ones. I do have some buffalo-horn or bone ones (from Viet Nam via eBay), but tortoise is the shiznit for that kind of pick.

Bob