By: Steve Rosen
Greetings pick collectors, nerds, aficionados, newbies, novices and everybody in-between:
My name is Steve Rosen and I’ve been collecting guitar picks since the Earth cooled or more precisely for about 45 years. I’ve been a rock journalist beginning around 1973.
From that point forward, I’d make a point—or try to at least—of asking the person I was interviewing for a guitar pick. Back in the day, logo picks as they would come to be known—simply, picks with pictures and graphics on them—were pretty uncommon. So, many of those early picks I secured were generic Fender, Dunlop or some other mass-manufactured little piece of plastic.
In 1975, while writing for Guitar Player Magazine, I came up with the idea of doing a little pictorial essay on the picks I’d collected. I pitched the idea and received a pretty lukewarm reception, but I was an insistent sort and I ultimately was given the green light.
I put together a little piece called The Picks of Rock and Roll. This included treasures I had received from Billy Gibbons, Ritchie Blackmore, Frank Zappa, Rory Gallagher, Eric Clapton and Jimi Hendrix [I’d never interviewed Clapton or Hendrix but I did see both of them in concert very early on and got the roadies to give me picks that were lying right on top of their amps].
To make a long story short, that GP story was what many considered the first piece published on pick collecting in a major publication.
Since that time, I continued to collect and trade and became a pick fiend like many of you reading this. I now have a collection of about 60,000 picks and sell picks regularly on eBay. I have a lot of classic rock bands and metal and all sorts of stuff.
You can find me on eBay under the name spiritnation.
Or give me a shout here on my personal email. I’d love to hear from you. I’m always looking to buy collections and stuff like that:
Thanks,
Steve
About Steve Rosen: Steven Rosen has been writing about rock ‘n roll for decades, and continues to write as a freelance journalist from his home-base in Los Angeles. Steve’s been a contributor to Guitar International and we published his book about Free and Bad Company a few years ago. He’s also written for Guitar Player, Guitar World, Mojo, Classic Rock and many other publications.
