I'm a victim of pick goblins

[Freddyfingers]

For a while, I had a clear pick. It was sent to me to try out by a vender. Once on the rug, it became invisible, until I heard it in side the front of the vacuum. On a separate note, I keep my finger nails cut back pretty well on my left fingering hand. I have done this long enough that calluses stick out further than the nails. Good for playing. My right hand is trimmed so that I don't look off balance, I guess. The problem is that I can not pick up a pick on a hard floor. I just cant get my fingers under it to lift it. Rugs are easy, but hard floors, stages, and things that don't flex, I have to leave the pick there, or have someone else pick it up. Same goes for coins.

[Jim Garber]

My duet partner has a medium brown rug in his music room. I have temporarily lost my BC pick there at least twice.

[Bertram Henze]

The problem is that I can not pick up a pick on a hard floor. I just cant get my fingers under it to lift it.

You can use your other pick for that.

[stevedenver]

I don't lose stuff, as a rule, and rarely misplace things.
I find that having a routine will help, like unfailingly stuffing it in the strings whenever I put down the instrument, or, into the small pocket of my jeans. Nowhere else.

I don't know if this is an issue, for you but
I have noticed that brightly colored picks are easier to spot. Clear are a disaster, even if youre looking right at them.

Its amazing how I will use a tortoise colored pick on similar colored couch, carpet, chair, etc, or how ivoroid disappears on a light floor or carpet, etc.

So, provided I find the pick shape and quality that I like

I choose yellow , pink, red, and 'clown barf' aka as multi colored or 'mardis gras'.

Try , if you like, this:
go to a hobby shop, and find brush on fluorescent paint ($3.00)-red, orange, yellow, and put a large dot on each side (you can use a q tip if you don't have small model brushes at home) , or, if you like, you can do some real artwork-yes ive seen these personalized touches and they are cool. My poor starving muso son does this to i.d. his picks from those of his bandmates'.
OR
if you cant bring yourself to do paint, try using brightly colored vinyl tape, just a small square.

I have both on my Blue Chip, florescent red paint and yellow tape one of which is sure to contrast as well as show up in dim light, and because it would irk me no end to lose it, especially playing out. The BC is the perfect color to blend in with many carpets, table tops, and stage floors, even when brightly lit, no less in the dinginess of a bar. Contrast really does help, not only color, but dark and light.

The tape has an added help, it offers a bit more grip or feel due to the raised edge. I have found, after a few months, that the glue will loosen and slide, and you have to apply a new piece.

And I guarantee, if you paint your beloved BC, the paint will, eventually wear off, if cosmetic violation of such a pricey trinket is abhorrent to you.

[Mike Steadfast-Ward]

Probably gone to that parallel universe where odd socks go to !
Seriously what kind of floor you playing on?

[Mike Steadfast-Ward]

Probably gone to that parallel universe where odd socks go to !
Seriously what kind of floor you playing on?

[Miked]

spend $35 on a blue chip. I bet you won't lose it.

That's the solution. I haven't lost a BC pick yet; the value of something definitely changes how you treat it.

[lorrainehornig]

I once lost my blue chip in my practice area. I looked everywhere and couldn't find it. In desperation I looked in one final place...yep, it was in the waste basket. How it got there is beyond me.

[JeffD]

I shook my mandolin... and then shook it a second time just to make sure. No luck.

Anyone ever notice that the picks you don't like don't mercifully disappear? I swear I could throw these Dawg picks, and Dunlop Americana Mandolin picks over the back fence, and I'd find them waiting for me on my desk when I get back inside. However any pick I even slightly like disappears.

Such a spiteful goblin.

Jeff Foxworthy has a joke about sunglasses. How you lose the expensive ones right away, but if you were on a cruise with those cheap drugstore glasses and they accidently fell overside a scuba diver would come up out of the water and give them back to you.

[Drewsey]

Update: I found it!

It was wedged down in the cushions of my computer chair. Only figured it out after my other wegen pick tried to do the same. I guess they missed each other.

It's like that kite eating tree from Peanuts, except in my case it's a pick eating chair.

[mandolirius]

The sad truth is it's nothing more than carelessness. I have friends that complain about it all the time. When we play together I watch what they do with their picks and guess what? I'm the only one watching. They're not paying the least bit of attention. Change pocket, in the strings....something. Ya gotta have a system.

[Petrus]

Thank the gods. I was tossin' and turnin' all night. "Will Drewsey find his pick ... will Drewsey find his pick ... Oh no, pick goblins!"

[Mike Bunting]

Perhaps it's entitled "Things ain't what they used to be."

Anyway, here's M R James' chiller:
http://www.thin-ghost.org/items/show/148

Isn't that "Things Ain't Where they Used to Be"!

[OldSausage]

Ya gotta have a system.

Only if you care!

[Bernie Daniel]

Update: I found it!

It was wedged down in the cushions of my computer chair. Only figured it out after my other wegen pick tried to do the same. I guess they missed each other.

It's like that kite eating tree from Peanuts, except in my case it's a pick eating chair.

Wow when I read that I almost lost my pick!

I was just scanning this string to get to the end so I could mention that I often lose picks between the ABS plastic base and the leather-foam seat cushion of my computer chair -- usually some quarters in there too. Now you know where to look next time! There seems to be a pick magnet down in that crevice!

[Fred Young]

Sure is amazing, if you find it, it will be in the last place you Look.

[Timbofood]

Bought another half gross of my dry gulch standards, still have most! Real tortoise ones, received as gifts forever ago, safely stored in the tin I put them in almost as long ago, where that tin is........

[Bernie Daniel]

Bought another half gross of my dry gulch standards, still have most! Real tortoise ones, received as gifts forever ago, safely stored in the tin I put them in almost as long ago, where that tin is........

I have noticed that the picks I store in the little tin candy box on my desk, remain always untouched and never wear out which is good but then I never get any benefit from them either and that part is not as good......you can effectively avoid falls by never getting out of bed.

[Ivan Kelsall]

Picks aren't the only things to disappear.Years back,i took a whole stack of photo.slides of Country Gazette at the UK Cambridge Folk Festival. I found them again a few months back & put them 'somewhere safe',intending to have them transferred to a CD - i haven't been able to find them since. Putting things 'somewhere safe' is almost a 24 carat guarantee that they've gone for ever. Like those items that you throw away knowing 'absolutely' that you'll NEVER need them (it) again - until the next day, when it's the ONLY thing that you really DO need. There's some 'weird science' going on behind the scenes if you ask me,
Ivan

[kevbuch]

I have a book that sais how to get rid of bothersome "little people". My favorite solution is that you sew it some tiny clothes. Your goblin should become indignant and leave. My book sais you could also make it your friend. How about making it a tiny mandolin?

[Bernie Daniel]

I have a book that sais how to get rid of bothersome "little people". My favorite solution is that you sew it some tiny clothes. Your goblin should become indignant and leave. My book sais you could also make it your friend. How about making it a tiny mandolin?

So the goblin would then have pick goblins? Poetic justice.

[trabb]

The pick Gnome at my house seems to leave them (along with capos and anything else small and guitar or mandolin related) in one particular pocket of my daughter's toy box. Funny how that happens.

[stevedenver]

Bought another half gross of my dry gulch standards, still have most! Real tortoise ones, received as gifts forever ago, safely stored in the tin I put them in almost as long ago, where that tin is........

what are dry gulch standards?
searched and did not find any picks whatsoever
thanks

[Cue Zephyr]

I've lost about three or four picks in my life. I own a couple dozen by now and haven't lost any since. I own a couple of V-Picks, Wegen and Gravity Picks too. No Blue Chip yet though.

I'm very careful with my picks, making sure everything is still in the box where I keep my favorite picks.

I'd like to have a TF140. I've been using a TF120 on the mandolin but I feel as if it's just a little too thin.

[Timbofood]

Steve, that's a reference to a line in the Steve McQueen's "Tom Horn" film where he talked about "Being an old dry gulcher, I can go into any general store and buy ammunition". So, I have gotten used to using picks that I can buy pretty much anywhere. For me that's :

The watch case is what I carry onstage.
Sorry to confuse the issue