We sometimes wonder if there should be a mountaineering detective agency to help work out the history of our equipment. The pair of boots we have here in the collection would seem to be worthy of a mountaineering Sherlock Holmes. Fortunately there are lots of clues so we’d better get those down first. PEARSEBROS 421 is stamped on each boot indicating that they were made by the Australian Pearse Brothers in Fremantle, though the British Military arrow and letters AS imply that the boots made their way to the UK during World War II since we have 1941 stamped on the sole. The letters RM also appear on the sole along with 11/5 – the latter probably being the size, the former maybe meaning Royal Marines, but we are not sure. Finally, we have triangular shaped Tricouni nails on the sole which originated in Switzerland. These were commonly used for mountaineering boots throughout Europe, from their invention by Felix Genecand in 1912 right through to the 1960’s. We also know that leather was in short supply in the UK during WWII which could be why we were importing boots from Australia who were, of course, one of our allies. The boots themselves are generally known as ammo boots and our best guess is that they are Australian Ammo Boots which have been imported to the UK during WWII and adapted with the Tricounis for use by mountain troops – how fascinating it would be to follow their journey. Like much military equipment after the war, the boots seem to have found their way into an army surplus store where they were bought by Alister Ballantine in the 1960s. He kindly passed them on to us in 2015.