We’ve found a couple more ‘Cassins’ to go with the original one to make a nice wee set. They call them ‘horizontals’ in the piton world and these three date from the 1960s, a time when pitons were the main form of protection in the mountains prior to the arrival of nuts, wedges and cams.

Ricardo Cassin was a famous Italian mountaineer who turned his hand to manufacturing climbing gear back in the 1940s, having survived the Second World War, operating as a partisan. Lots more Cassin gear elsewhere in the system, just put ‘Cassin’ into the search box and you’ll find it.