Founder of our heritage collection, Mick Tighe, got a wee trade deal going in 2012 with a fellow collector of old gear, Art McCarthy in California. Mick sends out various surplus items from this collection and Art reciprocates with a box of American climbing memorabilia – a fabulous way of enhancing our collection and spreading it beyond the Scottish boundaries. These three Chouinard Tube Chocs arrived as part of a wonderful box full of gear in April 2015 and it would seem they once belonged to American climber, Michael Jimmerson aka “Jimmer” which would explain the “JMJ” initials stamped on them. Yvon Chouinard seems to have produced the first Tube Chocs back in 1973 and they quickly became popular with American climbers battling with the notorious ‘off width’ cracks of Yosemite and elsewhere. Very few made their way over to the UK though they would have found welcome placements in many a gritstone crack. Large camming devices have now rendered Tubes pretty much redundant which makes them a great addition to our collection.