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Tort Pickguards = Tortoise shell?

Fetusyolk

Fetusyolk

Aug 7, 2008
1,260
6
#1
This may sound ridiculous to think of (or to not know), but are tortoise shell pickguards made from actual tortoise shell?

i'd also like to ask this of picks that appear to be tortoise shell.

i know many other things have been made from tortoise shell, but i haven't heard much about this. If this has been asked before i would be thankful for a link. i tried a search but i couldn't find much.
 
#4
In olden times they made brooches and combs and other ornamental doodads out of real tortoiseshell, and then in the earlier part of the last century they developed synthetic tortoiseshell out of celluloid (a plastic extracted from wood fibers) which was much cheaper and more durable than the real thing, and it became popular for pickguards. To the best of my knowledge there was never a "real" tortoise pickguard, unless it was a one-off craftsman type of thing a long time ago. Celluloid was replaced with vinyl in the later 1960's, and vinyl is still what's used mostly today, including for tort.
 
#6
I'm an older dude and have a brother who's a drummer that's eleven years older than me and I remember when his drum skins were real animal skins.
When he put a new head on it took hours to tune it. I think he had to wet them. I think some pick guards in that era were real tortoise shell.
 
#11
vin*tone said:
Yeah they are.
And not many people know this but baby oil is made from babies.
Click to expand...

I was once told about how Gerber got into a lot of trouble in a country that they were trying to start selling baby food in. It seems that in this particular country, a lot of people are illiterate, so food suppliers had gotten into the habit of placing a picture of whatever food was inside on the jar or can.

Gerber3VanillaLarge.jpg


Yum!
 
#13
Toneman said:
I'm an older dude and have a brother who's a drummer that's eleven years older than me and I remember when his drum skins were real animal skins.
When he put a new head on it took hours to tune it. I think he had to wet them. I think some pick guards in that era were real tortoise shell.
Click to expand...
I don't see any logical correlation there. I mean it's fine and cool if you remember that there were real shell pickguards, but it would have nothing to do with whether there were hide drumheads. FWIW skin drumheads are still used today by some old-school drummers, including me. :)
 
#16
I've only ever handled one pick made from real tortoise shell. It belongs to an older mandolin player we sometimes work with and he says he's had it since the '40s. He lost it during a gig with us and he was very upset about it but I found it and now I'm his friend for life. It has a very unique look and polished feel to it, unlike any faux tortoise pick I've ever handled.
 

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