First plectrum

Subject: RE: First plectrum
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 23 Aug 02 - 09:03 PM

Wow....someone else has that book! Great fun, and very informative.

Don, have you tried textured Golden Gate thumbpicks? I Luvvvv them!

Rick

Subject: RE: BS: First plectrum
From: GUEST,Fred Miller
Date: 23 Aug 02 - 08:22 PM

Tony, the picks sound like they have to be a discontinued line of D'Andrea. I'm sure if Scotty Moore talked to Tony D'Andrea he'd do his best to make him happy. They have a website, but the catalogues are narrower than in times past. They've moved since the address listed in PICKS!, and I could find the new building address if the web mail doesn't suit. But D'Andrea does the parti-colored and tortoise-shell celluloid you describe--the material is the same but the particolored always seems looser to me, maybe because it's constituted from bits rather than tortoise swirled-- but they have tried many shapes and things over the years--probably still have the dies. They still have the mallet die Tony's great grandfather used to pound out the quintessential flatpick shape.

Yep. Nobody has figured out how to stabilize celluloid since John Wesley Hyatt developed it in the 1860's, with gun cotton and collodion, trying to win a prize for making billiards out of something other than ivory. (It worked, but the balls would sometimesexplode, causing everyone to draw their guns and look around at each other.) Nearly everyone is at least expanding into other materials, the only things still made of it are picks and ping-pong balls (which some people use for nail-extension or repair). The edges seem like a simple downgrade in production standards to me. National, as far as I can tell, is an imprinted name, owned by somebody else now. Sorry I can't be more help, but for some reason good things go off the market.

So MMario, do you mean, you think maybe? arrowheads?

Subject: RE: BS: First plectrum
From: katlaughing
Date: 23 Aug 02 - 07:35 PM

Jean Ritchie says she uses a plastic lid from a margarine tub or the like, cut to size.

Subject: RE: BS: First plectrum
From: DonMeixner
Date: 23 Aug 02 - 06:58 PM

Tony,

I feel the same eway about the Old Nationals that I used in the 60-80's on my Autoharps. The new ones pale in comparison and are so limp any real pickinin' pressure and they come loose on your thumb. The old ones were a cream color whilke the new ones atre white. The old ones had a soft eadge to them while the new ones are crisp edges, almost sharp.

My guess is the old material was volatile in some way and the new ones safe and non flameable, doen't hurt ozone or dolphins and save trees.

Don

Subject: RE: BS: First plectrum
From: MMario
Date: 23 Aug 02 - 12:24 PM

fred - flint is also easily DULLED - and frequently is when hand tools are knapped to provide a gripping surface.

Subject: RE: BS: First plectrum
From: Venthony
Date: 23 Aug 02 - 12:03 PM

You are just the guy, Fred, to answer a VERY important question.

From the 40s through about 1985 someone or several someones manufactured long-bladed thumbpicks that were only about a quarter of an inch wide from the loop though the blade.

The best ones were parti-colored or imitation tortoise shell. (Folks say the color doesn't make any difference to the picking surface, but they're wrong.)

The last time I found any of these was deep in the Arkansas Ozarks back in the early 90s.

Thom Bresh has told me that his dad, Merle Travis, favored them, and he added that no less a picker than Scotty Moore has been searching for these things for years.

I used to work at a university, and me and another player there even had exchange students scouring the Far East for Japanes copies. No luck.

These were wonderful thumbpicks, with just the right combination of stiffness and "give." But apparently they have disappeared from the face of the earth.

Any help appreciated.

Best wishes, Tony

Subject: First plectrum
From: GUEST,Fred Miller
Date: 23 Aug 02 - 10:59 AM

There's a fun little book called PICKS! by Will Hoover, which appears to be the only book devoted to the subject. I suspect some mudcatters like obscure history topics as much as I do, and it's a good little book, mostly about flatpicks, celluloid, and D'Andrea's entertaining history.

Picks areshown in ancient egyptian bas-reliefs, and seem to go back as far as recorded history, and Hoover relates a speculation that arrowheads were the first picks, used to sound bowstrings. It sounds okay, but a sculptor friend of mine knaps flint as a hobby, and even his heads, which he says are poor, are scarey sharp. I think it'd be a good way to snap your bow-string, and doubt the whole idea. But that other thing, about an angry god turning a nymph into the first guitar, I'm pretty sure that's true.