Pitons were the best, sometimes the only, form of protection in the good old days and, logically perhaps, they needed a hammer to bang them in and to take them out. There was a vast array of pitons around in the 1960s/70s/80s, and we have lots of them elsewhere in the collection. Plenty of different hammers around too, and we have a fine example here in the collection which dates from around 1970.

Stubai of Austria and Cassin of Italy were the main producers of pitons back then and produced the hammers to go with them. In this case in a fine, heavy duty Cassin which once belonged to Ado Liddell, who for many years worked at Scotland’s National Outdoor Centre at Glenmore Lodge. The hammer has ‘GL’ stamped on it so we assume Ado borrowed it and forgot to hand it back. Hardly anyone uses pitons nowadays so maybe Glenmore Lodge doesn’t want it anyway!