Ricardo Cassin (1909-2009) was a famous Italian mountaineer with a glittering career in the mountains of Europe and the Himalayas. Having trained as a blacksmith in his youth he began designing and making mountaineering equipment at a place called Lecco in 1947, initially with pitons, followed by hammers, ice-axes and karabiners. A vast array of other equipment followed over the next couple of decades until another Italian company, CAMP, bought the Cassin trademark in 1967.

The Scottish based outdoor retailers Nevisport were the UK importers of the Cassin brand (which CAMP kept), they distributed Cassin gear around the UK in its various form, with the Cassin Extreme ice tools becoming popular with ice climbers of the day in the late 1970s. The Extreme’s fame, such as it was, was short-lived as Cassin came out with new versions (circa 1985) the Glace Hammer & Icefall Axe, they were vying with a vast array of other tools that hit the market around the same time, Simond, Charlet Moser, Chouinard, Grivel and the ubiquitous Terrordactyl, brain child of Hamish MacInnes in Glencoe.

So after all that , we are very pleased to have two ‘Extremes’ here in the collection, they belonged to the founder of our collection, Mick Tighe.