Patent # 6,930,231
I made my first prototype in 2002 and here is a picture of it. Thank you very much to my attorneys at Woodard, Emhardt, Moriarty, McNett & Henry . It took a while but it was worth it! You would think it is easy to make a punch to do this but it is not. Punching picks from 1mm plastic takes quite a bit of force. The final design will probably depress instead of shear to make it easier. Although crude, the tool works very well! Next step, tooling the final design!
Although not yet the perfect pick shape shown below, I punched out some and they work excellent. The final product will be the usual pick shape with more rounded sides. Anyway, it was very satisfying to destroy the cards! Gift cards, photo id cards, and misc. plastic materials all work very well. My favorite picks are the ones with the hollograms. The raised lettering on the credit cards are in the perfect location to reduce slip while playing. These make a nice memory of those paid off credit credit cards. I think even if you don’t play guitar that this would be a nice item to have around just to destroy the cards and you could give the picks to someone that does play. I play quite a bit of guitar and these really do work well and they do wear a little bit quicker than the store bought picks they are very durable. I have quite a few friends that asked me to make picks for them just to destroy the old cards because there really is not any good uses for old credit cards. Most people just shred them or cut them up. Now there is finally something useful for those old cards!
I will probably still buy a few store bought picks now and then but with this tool you are basically getting a lifetime supply of picks for you and all your friends!
