These cams provided us with a bit of a puzzle and we originally thought the largest was an American cam called Big Dude and put it in the collection as that with a query. Our query was answered by our good friend Stephane Pennequin who owns the Nuts Museum out in Corsica: “Bonjour Mick, a couple of days ago I spotted a big cam at the end of your web page. You were wondering if this cam might well be a Yates Big Dude…..it is not! This cam, with the die cast cam lobes, was made by Ande in Italy under the name of Hard, and sometimes sold under the name of Slit Flex by Kong.”

Merci beaucoup to Stephanie, puzzle solved. We’ve added a couple more smaller ones to the big fella – who has been around a bit as a pal of ours, Paul Rosher, bought it back from a climbing trip to Yosemite, USA. Mick Tighe found the wee ones in a boulder field while working in the Swiss Alps circa 1985 and we suspect they appeared on the market just prior to that.