I love Tortoise pickguards and this is my material of choice. The pattern is great and the mint laminates add a nice touch. Very easy to work with.
Used it for my first bass that I built. Looks great with a walnut body. Compared to a friends USA Fender Jazz bass Tortoise pickguard, this is far superior.
I just put a Tortoise Pickguard on my Thinline Tele, and plan to put one on another build. I use Stew-Mac pickguard material on ALL my Teles, and always get raves from my fellow musicians and guitar lovers. It's simply the BEST you can use!
Upon close examination, it is pretty obvious that this material is a tortoise-shell PRINT (you can see the dots from the print job), not a natural swirly mixture of differently tinted plastics). From a distance, you won't notice it, but when you press your nose to the stuff you'll spot it. The pattern is fairly fine in scale and repeats itself within the 11"x19" sheets that are sold.
I've seen far better looking Tortoise pickguard material. This has an ugly-looking pattern