Upside of not throwing away old picks

[Eric Platt]

For the past week or so, had been unhappy with my tone on the Breedlove Cascade. Now that it's starting to slightly open up, the pick I had been using was sounding a bit too clicky.

So decided to experiment. Have a box with many different styles of picks from the past (mumble) years. After about 2 days of experimenting, and having my wife listen we came to the conclusion that the best picks for this mandolin, right now, are Dunlop Primetone in 351 shape and Wegen bluegrass picks.

Not saying some of these Wegens are old, but the earliest was hand shaped by Michael and I drilled the holes in it (photo below with later version as comparison). This was back when he was first advertising them on Flatpick-L. Haven't really been using them in the past decade, as they've always been tough for me to grip for long periods of time. Will see if things get any better. Sure like how they sound on this mandolin. Haven't tried them on the Gibson A Jr., though.

[UsuallyPickin]

Well .... I have many lighter / thinner picks I no longer use. I keep a few in my case to give them away when I come across either someone that uses that type or manages to show up w/o plectrum. I do the same thing with lightly used fiddle strings. I am always amazed at / by those players that don't have an extra set of strings in their case...... go figure. R/

[Jim Garber]

I have piles of picks and rarely would throw any away. I am not particularly fond of very rounded picks like Dawg ones but I have gravitated from pointier ones to the slightly rounded BC's lately. Much of it also depends on the type of music i am playing and the mandolin I am playing it on. I figure I can always go back to the ones I started with and like to keep all those options. A few years ago I used smaller jazz picks and occasionally use those. Also, if I play choro tunes on my bandolims then I might use a lighter pick than I would on my standard Brentrup A4C. And besides I am a hoarder.

[AlanN]

I have a pack of Dunlop 2.0 mm purple jobs in the Leaf case, at the ready to give alms to the poor, the tired, the hungry, the pick-less pickers in need...

[varmonter]

I evolved over the years into using thicker picks.
So I keep a few of the under 1mm picks in my case.
For those times when someone else needs a pick.
I have a few boutique picks. Several bc and a "Hense" which I use quite often
About 6 months ago I purchased
An "Ellis a5 special" .. just recently I received a card in the mail
From Tom Ellis thanking me for my purchase and enclosed in the
Card was a Blue chip pick with my mandolins serial number
And Ellis engraved on it. Nice touch Tom. About 2 years ago I
Started using fender extra heavys . I like them as well as bc.
And can get 100 of them for less than 1 BC. So I mostly use them
But occasionally ( mostly at home) use the BC.

[Eric Platt]

That's cool. Getting a matching BC pick. Besides my pick box, each instrument case usually has a half dozen different picks. Plus the 4 or so that are on my person.

Oh, and none of this includes my personal collection of picks from other players.

[Rob Ross]

I travel a lot, and check out a lot of music stores all over. It's not possible to buy a mandolin everywhere you go (I wish), but picks are always fun to buy. I've got just about one of everything in my travel mando gig bag. I do a lot of playing in between flights by finding an empty gate at the airport, and sit in the back playing quietly. I have found that Golden Gate and Dawg picks (my wife was very nice to me one Christmas) are very quiet when not plucked hard, so I can practice till my fingers hurt without bugging the other folks looking for some oasis of quite in overly-loud airports.

[Bill Kammerzell]

I have two Gibson Heavy picks I purchased sometime before 1993, when I gave up on the mandolin for 22 years. Wife found them in a box about a year ago. Wish I knew how old they actually are. Could be as old as around 1978 when I bought my first mandolin. Brown in color. Can barely read the Gibson Heavy inscription but its still there.