Unusual Items used as Picks.

[Purdy Bear]

I was wondering what other people use as picks, that weren't initially made to be so?

I've found a plastic bookmark, that has a great point to it, and is thick enough to be used as a decent pick. I'm thinking it would be great for those with hand problems or the like that have problems with normal sized picks.

The bookmark, which was made by Lakeland (as in Lakeland Plastic the homeware shop)

[David Lewis]

I've used bread tags.

Brian May uses a sixpence.

[T.D.Nydn]

As a kid,at parties and things when you find a guitar but no pick,,I used to fold up match book covers and use them,,they don't last long,but can get you through a few tunes .....

[bingoccc]

I've got a couple of Kennedy half dollar coins in my pick pile for guitar. It gives it kind of a dirty, steel sound.

[allowishish]

I've used the pull tab off of a beer can and once cut a piece out of a plastic jug.... Both done around the campfire.
Btw the aluminum pull tab scratched the crap out of the guitar top (my buddy has a very agressive attack)

[Clinton Johnson]

I've seen a man who was about to play a song in church realize he didn't have a pick for his guitar so he pulls out his plastic comb in his back pocket and strums away. Talk about improvising.

[Spencer]

Cut my first pick out of the plastic top from a can of shaving cream. Worked fine.

Spencer

[rebus]

I've used a SIM card a couple of times

[Jackgaryk]

okay i'll admit it..i have used roasted sunflower seeds.

[k0k0peli]

Felt and leather picks, rubber eraser, credit card fragments, steel fingerpicks, thimbles (metal and ceramic), wooden nickel, sliver of bone, BIC pen cap, bear claw, shark tooth, odd bits of jewelry, broken plate, thick cactus spine, flat pebble, driftglass, clam shell, and probably a few other things I've forgotten. Have not yet had to resort to coprolites.

[JeffD]

A while back I went virtually credit free, paid everything off except the mortgage, and cut up all my credit cards into picks. They make better guitar picks than mandolin picks, but the ultimate benefit is they cannot be used as credit cards.

[John Kelly]

I too use old credit cards. Got a plectrum punch from my daughter some time back and use this to cut out the pick, then I take some of the point off and bevel the edges. The raised bits where the numbers were are great for giving extra grip.

[journeybear]

I've used a piece of curly maple (too soft), an obsidian shard and pieces of shell (too hard and too much pick noise), and various things in a pinch, including the aforementioned bread bag tags and credit cards and coins. The root cause is showing up to play without a pick, often because I leave picks in the watch pocket of my jeans, so if I am wearing something else and have failed to transfer them ... oops! If anyone asks, I can get away with saying, "I left them in my other pants."

My current go-to spare "pick" is a plastic Mardi Gras doubloon; I leave it in my gig bag pocket just in case (so to speak). This came up recently on another thread, a somewhat pointless one about pointing out the points of using picks with or without points. I'll reprise it here in the hope it helps someone smile, if nothing else.

I am generally of the opinion that it ain't what you do, it's the way how you do it. Of course, it also is best to have the right tool for the job. Now, inasmuch as you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, and you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink, you have to make hay while the sun shines.

A few months ago my gig bag got a little wet, so I took the time to give it a good cleaning and wipe down, including clearing out the doodad pocket. I noticed I had one of those fake doubloons from a Mardi Gras or Fantasy Fest parade in there. I kept in in there, just in case or for good luck. Then last Saturday I showed up at the radio show loaded for bear and Clementine - two mike stands and mikes, my Baggs venue DI, all sorts of cords and gizmos and knick-knacks and bells and whistles tossed in my gig bag (this is all on my bike, BTW) - but somehow had not brought a single pick! I knew Clementine wouldn't have one when she arrived, as she plays ukulele with her fingers. But I remembered that doubloon, which I decided would be my double secret probation pick and get me through this trying time. This is about as thick as my Dunlop 3mm "The Club," and being about two inches across, has an even shallower curvature than my Dawg pick - but it was there, which those weren't (and I wouldn't have used even if they were, since I also have a regular guitar pick ). I'm not recommending this by any means - it is not made from acoustically-oriented material - and indeed, it sounded so awful I used my fingernails for chords most of the time - but for picking leads, it worked all right. It was way better than nothing. With a nod to Dave's True Story's "Flexible Man," ("the measure of a man / Is in the way that he can adapt"), I was able to adapt, and that is really the point of this rambling racontage - use what you've got with what you know how, and you ought to do all right.

[DHopkins]

My father used picks he made out of Plexiglas or credit cards on his old Slingerland Songster guitar. He helped make the B-52 bombers and had plenty of the Plexiglas.

I've made them out of coconut shells. They're plenty hard and wear well but I wasn't crazy about the sound on a mandolin. I gave them away to guitar pickers.

[Dave Hanson]

Some Irish banjo players use a ' thimble pick ' basicly a piece of plastic tube slipped on the index finger with thumb on top, I have seen English player Tony [ Sully ] Sullivan play mandolin with one.

Dave H

[zedmando]

I almost always have a pick or two on me, so it's not normally a problem.
With guitar I can also use my fingers--not quite there on mandolin with the smaller dimensions, but there are coins & stuff.

But some cool stuff in this thread.

[Purdy Bear]

I'm going to have to dig out my quilters thimbles to see what sound they make, unlike a normal metal thimble they have a flat top. Also the use of other things as pick is going to progress just in case I need to know for later.