Vintage tortoise picks?
 

Where can I legally purchase vintage authentic tortoise picks? What's a fair price to pay for them if I can find them?

I don't think you can, at least not legally. As far as I know, all trade of CITES-protected materials is prohibited.

How would you know if it was vintage or poached a month ago?

Hi Rmz,
It isn't legal to sell tortoise shell objects now.

Try a Blue Chip pick, they are supposed to be very similar. Search the forums and u will find rave reviews. Buying and selling tortoise shell is illegal.

IF you can find some of the vintage picks with a logo on them (which will establish their bona fide vintage-ness) you can legally buy or sell them, the same as you can still buy or sell a antique tortoise shell comb or jewelry box.

http://pickcollecting.presspublisher...6/CIMG1219.JPG

Various manufacturers are selling picks made from casein plastic (a plastic derived from milk protein and vinegar) which is the closest thing to tortoise shell available in terms of hardness. Check out Red Bear Trading Company or John Pearce Fast Turtles (and I'm sure there are a few more) for some examples.
Warning: casein picks, like tortoise shell picks, are very brittle and absorb moisture, so they come in their own individual cloth pouch. It's a good idea to keep them in the pouch when not in use... and never, ever, let them go through the washer and dryer by leaving them in the pockets of your jeans. That'll be the end of 'em and you'll be out $10 or more.
But you won't believe the difference in the way they make your guitar sound!
Hope this helps.

Thank you! What would these go for (ball park)

With or without the fake counterfeit stickers?

Genuine tortoise shell picks are relatively rare after the 1920s and although DAndrea did produce some, along with other manufacturers, their claim to fame was primarily celluloid replacement. Tortoise shell picks degrade and become brittle over time and are prone to breakage. Should you find some picks from the fifties or sixties that are legal for private trade (but not commercial trade), you would be ill-advised to use them; rather they are collector's items to be stored and displayed. Otherwise, you'll just break and chip them in short order.

There are lots of fakes out there. Many people who believe they are using genuine tortoise shell are mistaken. The best flat-pickers today don't use them. There are better modern replacements that out-perform tortoise shell in the hands of the best pickers today.

Wow. I did not know that. I have a few casein picks and love them, but one already broke on me, and the replacement is starting to show hairline cracks. I never bothered to treat them any different than plastic picks because I didn't know about their sensitivity to drying out. I pretty much resigned to the fact that they don't last, but now I'm going to pull that little cloth pouch - which I deemed cute but useless - back out.

Thank you! :up:

I am old enough that the picks EVERYONE was using were tortoise shell picks... and I can tell you, they weren't "all that and a bag of chips"!

They tended to break pretty easily; I had several break while I was carrying them in my pocket, long before I carried car and house keys in my pockets with them...

I did use the thinner picks, and perhaps those broke easier than the heavy ones...

Although expensive, the Blue Chip picks are quite similar and far, far more durable than tortoise shell... I've had a Blue Chip pick for some 3 years now and haven't lost it, so it IS possible to not lose them! I did manage to scar the edge of mine, though, and thus far have been unable to smooth it out satisfactorily for my use...

Most of the best bluegrass pickers today still use genuine TS from what I've seen, and heard? They just no longer wish to talk about it, because they know it sets off such a wailing by those attempting to stamp out the practice... No performer wants to incite any hecklers over the pick he uses....

I have never heard of TS picks "going bad" over two years? I bought my first shell pick in 1955 for fifty cents, and played with it until 2011! Finally, the point wore down too far for me to use comfortably. I gave it to a pal who used a lot smaller pick than I did. He reshaped it and is still using it....

Although I haven't tried most of the newer substitutes, I have never found anything that plays like real shell for a flat pick? I rarely use mine any more. Over the past 20 years I've became a thumb picker, but I treat my few remaining shell picks like they were gold! I think can tell real shell every time easily too!

I'm all for protecting the Hawksbill Turtle, but think criminalizing the use of something that's been dead a hundred years is downright foolish. I also believe most "Zero Tolerance" laws are failures because the spirit of the law is far more important than the exact letter of the law!

Don

I have quite a number of TS picks. Some were purchased in music shops around the early '70s and ther was no shortage whatsoever.

Sadly back then i was a beginner and so I tended to buy thin picks.

In later years - around the '90s I knew a man who searched out old Victorian vanity sets (combs , brushes, mirrors etc., and stripped them of the tortoise shell coverings to make excellent picks. He used to sell them for a bout £15 to £25 (at current ROE $25 to $43).

He was an ex musician, suffering from MS, and so knew what shapes and thicknesses worked. People would queue up at his little caravan or stall to buy his picks.

Sadly his illness has now taken him over but I bet he stil has some of those "stamp" collectors books full of lovely hand made TS picks - all made from material which , by definition was 19th C.

They could sound very good, and I used one on mando up until very recently , but I too have been drawn to Blue Chip picks for all purposes.

CLAYTONS.............forever...!!!
Tom