Fernand Petzl was a caver who had a desire to improve the equipment being used by himself and his pals in the 1920s and 30s. Along with a guy called Pierre Chevalier, he produced various items of innovative gear throughout the 50s and 60s, and in 1973 Produits Fernand Petzl produced their first mountaineering headlamp. Various forms of lanterns, torches, headlamps and the like had been around for centuries, but Petzl headlamps brought a certain sanity to moving around in the mountains at night.

Not quite sure how early, but the one we have here in the collection must be a fairly early one as it has an on/off switch predating the zoom version which appeared in 1981 (twisting off the zoom facility incorporated the on/off switch) This particular headlamp belonged to Mick Tighe and was used for many years in his mountain guiding company, Nevis Guides.