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Thread: Lloyd Loar's Pick

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    Registered User Bill Baldridge's Avatar
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    Default Lloyd Loar's Pick

    I am sure that many of us have an array of picks within reach when we are playing our mandolin. The obvious reason is that different picks can so dramatically change the sounds being produced. That got me to wondering what pick Lloyd Loar was most likely to have grabbed when he was playing his F5. Does anyone know? Is there a likelihood based on the most commonly used picks of the time? I assume the pick was made of the material not to be mentioned on this site. I am curious if there was such a thing as a commonly used size, shape, and thickness for mandolin picks during the early part of the 1920's.

  2. #2
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    Default Re: Lloyd Loar's Pick

    I bet it wasn't a BC !

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    Registered User Craig D.'s Avatar
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    Default Re: Lloyd Loar's Pick

    Someone else knows, I expect, but I would guess triangle-cut tortoise shell.
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    but that's just me Bertram Henze's Avatar
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    Default Re: Lloyd Loar's Pick

    we don't say T.S. name out loud here, Craig.



    Anyway, I guess celluloid was around then, wasn't it?
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  6. #5

    Default Re: Lloyd Loar's Pick

    Perhaps someone could check with Roger Siminoff to see what might have been in the case when he purchased Lloyd’s personal F5 from his widow?

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    Moderator MikeEdgerton's Avatar
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    Default Re: Lloyd Loar's Pick

    I know that Roger had some of Loar's instruments but I do not recall one of them being an F5. On Rogers Loar page there is a link to Loar's instruments but it's broken. I know Roger owned the instrument's in the case with the musical saw shown on the above referenced page but there is no mention that the F5 pictured under tap tuning was Loar's own. If someone has a link I'd love to see it, I could very well be wrong.
    "It's comparable to playing a cheese slicer."
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    Default Re: Lloyd Loar's Pick

    Another possibility would be an ivory triangle.
    I love hanging out with mandolin nerds . . . . . Thanks peeps ...

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    Administrator Mandolin Cafe's Avatar
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    Default Re: Lloyd Loar's Pick

    Quote Originally Posted by MikeEdgerton View Post
    I know that Roger had some of Loar's instruments but I do not recall one of them being an F5. On Rogers Loar page there is a link to Loar's instruments but it's broken. I know Roger owned the instrument's in the case with the musical saw shown on the above referenced page but there is no mention that the F5 pictured under tap tuning was Loar's own. If someone has a link I'd love to see it, I could very well be wrong.
    Roger has owned Lloyd's personal Gibson F-5 with LL's signature, of course, since 1998. Roger just started offering it up for sale on Facebook awhile back.

    https://www.facebook.com/StraightUpS...49172215124857

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    Registered Muser dang's Avatar
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    Default Re: Lloyd Loar's Pick

    Hold on, aren’t all the moderators in the same room? At the mandolin cafe headquarters, high atop a skyscraper in Lawrence, KS? All of my illusions have been destroyed!
    I should be pickin' rather than postin'

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    Default Re: Lloyd Loar's Pick

    Over the years I have found hundreds of old picks in vintage instrument cases and none of them were anywhere near as thick as modern-day pickers prefer.

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    Registered User Bill Baldridge's Avatar
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    Default Re: Lloyd Loar's Pick

    Quote Originally Posted by MojoMando View Post
    Over the years I have found hundreds of old picks in vintage instrument cases and none of them were anywhere near as thick as modern-day pickers prefer.
    That has been my limited experience as well. I am 73 and have my grandfather's pick stash. They are small and thin, but I don't know that tells me too much beyond his preference.

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    Registered User Billy Packard's Avatar
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    Default Re: Lloyd Loar's Pick

    I had the rare pleasure of playing L.L.'s personal F5 while visiting Roger a few years back. It has the Virzi inside and while it wasn't all that loud of a mandolin the tone was very fine indeed. I also played Roger's own self-made mandolin and it was a real ringer. Roger is a great guy and a walking encyclopedia.

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    Lurkist dhergert's Avatar
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    Default Re: Lloyd Loar's Pick

    Two thoughts, speculation and I could easily be wrong...

    1) Not trying to justify it at all, but TS was not restricted before 1977, and it could easily have been the material that made up the picks that LL and other pros used in his day.
    2) The F-5 was intended for classical music, so whatever pick the classical musicians at that time were preferring to promote excellent classical tone was probably the most popular.
    -- Don

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    Default Re: Lloyd Loar's Pick

    Quote Originally Posted by dang View Post
    Hold on, aren’t all the moderators in the same room? At the mandolin cafe headquarters, high atop a skyscraper in Lawrence, KS? All of my illusions have been destroyed!
    Scott is up in the penthouse on the 12th floor. I'm downstairs. We only see each other in the hall on the way to cafeteria.
    "It's comparable to playing a cheese slicer."
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    "Bargain instruments are no bargains if you can't play them"
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    Default Re: Lloyd Loar's Pick

    Quote Originally Posted by Mandolin Cafe View Post
    Roger has owned Lloyd's personal Gibson F-5 with LL's signature, of course, since 1998. Roger just started offering it up for sale on Facebook awhile back.

    https://www.facebook.com/StraightUpS...49172215124857
    OK, so the best answer was indeed to ask Roger.
    "It's comparable to playing a cheese slicer."
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    "Bargain instruments are no bargains if you can't play them"
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  22. #16
    Registered User mandolinstew's Avatar
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    Default Re: Lloyd Loar's Pick

    Maybe he made his own.I have a saxophone player friend who makes his own reeds.

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    Default Re: Lloyd Loar's Pick

    Quote Originally Posted by MikeEdgerton View Post
    Scott is up in the penthouse on the 12th floor. I'm downstairs. We only see each other in the hall on the way to cafeteria.
    And don't you forget it.

    Excuse now, whilst I light this Cuban cigar with a crisp $100 bill and have my secretary fetch a glass of champagne and fresh strawberries as I prop my feet up on my new Cocobolo desk. The life of a mandolin web site mogul... if you only knew.

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    Registered User mandotool's Avatar
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    Default Re: Lloyd Loar's Pick

    Quote Originally Posted by Mandolin Cafe View Post
    And don't you forget it.

    Excuse now, whilst I light this Cuban cigar with a crisp $100 bill and have my secretary fetch a glass of champagne and fresh strawberries as I prop my feet up on my new Cocobolo desk. The life of a mandolin web site mogul... if you only knew.
    One might also expect that you are strumming your signed Loar with your own custom personally
    monogramed mandolin pick's ? something like one of these for instance..
    https://www.ebay.com/itm/BILL-MONROE...AAAOSwArteERAJ
    Click image for larger version. 

Name:	%22Bill Monroe's pick%22.png 
Views:	186 
Size:	621.0 KB 
ID:	182711

    just popped up on one of the auction sites.... might look nice framed next to your
    "THE" peghead veneer perhaps ?

  26. #19
    Moderator MikeEdgerton's Avatar
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    Default Re: Lloyd Loar's Pick

    Quote Originally Posted by Mandolin Cafe View Post
    And don't you forget it.

    Excuse now, whilst I light this Cuban cigar with a crisp $100 bill and have my secretary fetch a glass of champagne and fresh strawberries as I prop my feet up on my new Cocobolo desk. The life of a mandolin web site mogul... if you only knew.
    I've actually managed to pipe the heat off the server processors from the Cafe Data Center into my office in the winter so I have a little heat. It's a tough gig.

    Dan has it a little worse than me. He is stuck in the server farm and is rarely seen. Jamie comes by now and then to make sure I'm still alive. Ted is, well Ted is Ted. He's generally giving speeches. He calls them Ted Talks for some reason.
    "It's comparable to playing a cheese slicer."
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    "Bargain instruments are no bargains if you can't play them"
    --J. Garber

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    Registered User Bill Baldridge's Avatar
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    Default Re: Lloyd Loar's Pick

    Thanks everyone. I think that we are through talking about Lloyd Loar or his pick.

  29. #21
    Oval holes are cool David Lewis's Avatar
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    Default Re: Lloyd Loar's Pick

    Quote Originally Posted by Mandolin Cafe View Post
    And don't you forget it.

    Excuse now, whilst I light this Cuban cigar with a crisp $100 bill and have my secretary fetch a glass of champagne and fresh strawberries as I prop my feet up on my new Cocobolo desk. The life of a mandolin web site mogul... if you only knew.
    Only a hundred? And we all thought you were rich...
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    Oval holes are cool David Lewis's Avatar
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    Default Re: Lloyd Loar's Pick

    Don’t forget, the original plectrum was a feather, so small and thin makes sense.
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  31. #23
    Registered Muser dang's Avatar
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    Default Re: Lloyd Loar's Pick

    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Baldridge View Post
    Thanks everyone. I think that we are through talking about Lloyd Loar or his pick.
    Sorry Bill, I didn’t mean to derail your thread! It was a long night at work and everything had something a little extra funny about it...



    Quote Originally Posted by MikeEdgerton View Post
    .... Ted is, well Ted is Ted. He's generally giving speeches. He calls them Ted Talks for some reason.
    Ted’s the only moderator I have met, when he was at the old downtown store before it closed. We both have a love of mandolins and a receding hairline. I think I have heard one of his talks, he let me play a Rigel G that he had in the store.
    I said, “oh, you have that jazz mandolin website”
    He said, “yes, that’s me. Anyway, you should keep playing bluegrass”
    I should be pickin' rather than postin'

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    Moderator MikeEdgerton's Avatar
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    Default Re: Lloyd Loar's Pick

    Quote Originally Posted by Bill Baldridge View Post
    Thanks everyone. I think that we are through talking about Lloyd Loar or his pick.
    I actually have a book on the history of the plectrum that I will dig out tonight. It will give me the dates of the introduction of the early plastic picks. Beyond the use of natural materials you could assume that Loar used whatever was commercially available as well.

    Well, I own the book but it looks like most of it is here.
    "It's comparable to playing a cheese slicer."
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    "Bargain instruments are no bargains if you can't play them"
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  34. #25
    formerly Philphool Phil Goodson's Avatar
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    Default Re: Lloyd Loar's Pick

    Surely Lloyd's pick must have had a tiny virzi glued to it!
    Phil

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