D'Andrea Picks - History of The Plastic Pick

History of The Plastic Pick

Up until 1922, most picks were handmade from real tortoise shell - the carapace of the Atlantic Hawksbill turtle. It provided the finest tonal quality but it had some drawbacks. It was very expensive, had a tendency to break, and was scarce. People had tried other materials such as bone, stone, and ivory but none had been particularly successful.

Luigi D'Andrea punched the little disks out of celluloid by hand, with a heavy mallet and a variety of knife edged dies which he designed. The cut edges were then finished by hand with sand paper. He also made the traditional tortoise shell picks the same way. The real shell came from Europe in irregularly shaped "plates" which were then soaked in oil and pressed between heated stainless steel plates for days. The plates were regularly tightened with a hand wheel. The pick material was then taken off the press hot and cut by hand with a steel die and wooden mallet, to get as many good picks as possible from the irregular plate. They had to work quickly because if the shell cooled or dried out, it would shatter when cut. The edges of the plate made thin picks, further in was medium, and the center supplied the thick gauge. They were then either tumbled or finished by hand on a sanding wheel. Some would have to be re-pressed flat again at the end of this process, for the gauges were never uniform. By comparison, the celluloid process was slightly simpler because the 2'x5', sheets were flat and uniformly gauged. It was readily available in the U.S. until the late '60s, and only from Italy and Japan.

During this early time he experimented with different shapes and sizes. Guitarists he knew would visit him, and bring their special needs to his attention: making the picks bigger, smaller, longer, more round, sharper, point two sides, then three. He started numbering the styles. Soon he had created 23 shapes in tortoise and 56 shapes in celluloid. Among them is the famous #351 which eventually becomes the 'standard' "Fender" pick. One of the oddest was the #84, a combination of 3 #353 picks in thin, medium and heavy, beveled on one edge, and joined by a rivet. It could be flipped out like a pocket knife to the desired thickness when needed. Because he tried to please so many of the players with modifications to pick styles, most of today's pick "inventions" were already included in the D'Andrea catalogs of the 1920s!

The problem of holding on to a pick was also addressed. There is a whole line with shaped cork cushion grips, including a heart shaped grip for a heart pick, in several sizes. One line also had notches in the sides of the picks that held tiny rubber bands. That look actually became part of the D'Andrea logo from the 1920s to the '50s. Some picks even had 1/4" holes in the centers for grip. When imprinting became an integral part of pick manufacturing, different "patterns" were embossed for grip. Some styles were actually struck with a die which embedded tiny ridges in the tops to "corrugate" them. By the 1970s, D'Andrea introduced yet another innovation addressing the grip problem—PRO-GRIP celluloid. This treated the normally polished surface with a resin coating. The shiny pick was now dusty looking but it stayed put. In the '90s that treatment was used on the molded Delrin PRO-GRIP BRITES pick line.

By 1928, Luigi D'Andrea was the Henry Ford of guitar picks, with semi-automated equipment to punch, tumble and imprint as many as 59 differently shaped picks in both celluloid and real tortoise shell. His New York City factory produced flat picks, thumb and finger picks, pick guards, as well as guitar, bass, sax, accordion & drum bags, and cases.

In the 1930s, Luigi's son Anthony joined the business and began some innovations of his own. Not only the production, but the marketing of picks became his forte. He took his cue from the candy business and secured some surplus compartmentalized boxes with glass tops which he filled with pick assortments. Picks were soon sold by the gross and half gross in 4" square plastic 'jewel' boxes with separate lids. These eventually evolved into the clear plastic compartment boxes we see today. He put picks on cardboard displays, die-cut point of purchase counter easels, and pop-up boxes. The 1930s "Nick Lucas" picks on a card were an example of his packaging ideas.

The picks originally made in the '20s were used on mandolins, banjos and acoustic guitars. The early blues and jazz players used the picks back then. In the 1950s they were used by early rockers. As more and more folks began playing guitar, the demand grew rapidly. Anthony (Tony, Sr.) then began the search for new materials for picks. Tortoiseshell was hardly available, and by 1975 would be on the endangered list and no longer used. Celluloid always was an expensive and a difficult material to handle. The lead times were tremendous and erratic. To meet the demand, he introduced a molded nylon pick with circular patterns for grip.