Some of the world’s best guitarists make an unorthodox choice: they prefer to use a humble coin to strike the strings rather than a traditional guitar pick. While it makes an undeniable contribution to their unique tone, not any coin will work. In fact, the extreme thickness and inflexibility of coins might make the guitar unplayable.
Queen guitarist Brian May is the most famous proponent of the coin as guitar pick. But take a closer look and you’ll find his choice of coin is very specific: an old English six pence that has a higher degree to silver than modern coins.
“I found I liked the harder picks because I could feel more of the action in my fingers,” May said in an interview with Premier Guitar in 2021. “And so one day I suppose I just tried this because I thought, well, this [a coin] will give me absolutely everything that happens at the string, I will feel in the fingers… this has given me zero flexibility but in fact I get all the flexibility I need from here [the coin edge moving up and down in the fingers].”
May’s loose coin grip even allows him to feel the serrations on the edge of the coin as they strike the strings. Changing the angle creates a unique “splutter” which, in combination with the heel of the hand, makes the guitar sound similar to the human voice, according to May. The high silver content in an old English six pence also makes it softer than today’s coins.
May has influenced a generation to try coins rather than celluloid guitar picks, including A Flock of Seagulls’ guitarist Paul Reynolds (hear its use on their biggest 80s hit I Ran (So Far Away).) The Mint Of England even designed a Brian May sixpence coin with his profile for May’s 1993 Back To The Light tour.
ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons is another legendary guitarist who used particular types of coins for many years in lieu of a pick: a Mexican peso or quarters. However, they weren’t pesos straight off the street: rather picks in the traditional shape crafted from Mexican peso coins by Stuart Brady.
A 2007 Austin American Statesman article described the way Brady would use a bench grinder to grind the peso down to a guitar pick shape and then file the edge of the coin with a hand file. The first batch sent to Gibbons were made from 1957 to 1961 pesos. However, more recently Gibbons has used the V-PICK Tradition Lite Ghost Rim (1.5mm).
Other famous guitarists are often said to have used coins as guitar picks although the evidence is sketchy at best.
Dire Straits legend Mark Knopfler – best known for his unique right hand fingerstyle to play the electric – is reputed to have used a coin as a pick on occasion, but I can find no evidence to back that up. However, Knopfler was apparently aiming for the sound of ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons – who did favour a coin – on their 1985 hit Money for Nothing. Eddie Van Halen is also said to have used a coin, and given his penchant for experimentalism, it would not be a surprise, but again I can find no supporting evidence (although he did confirm he used metal picks at one stage).
Paul McCartney was spotted in 2019 (then aged 77) supposedly flattening pennies on a train track to use as picks, although he never confirmed it and the source seems unlikely.
Nonetheless, there’s no doubt that a coin can provide a unique tone compared to a traditional pick. Just don’t assume any coin will do – the material (hardness – often related to the silver content), thickness, as well as grip, all play a significant role.
