Looking very much like a pair of Chouinard Rigid Crampons ( a pair of which you will find elsewhere in the collection) this pair were produced by the Seattle Manufacturing Corporation – SMC – which began life way back in 1967, brainchild of Jim Clark. The Chouinard variety appeared in 1968, and a patent for the SMC version was granted in 1974 as you will see opposite. Quite how the patent laws work we are not sure but we doubt if Yvon Chouinard would have been too happy when the SMC versions appeared on the market. Rigid crampons were very popular in the 1970/80’s though they were pretty specific to steep, vertical ice as the most rigid of boots would flex a little on any other terrain and the great glaciers of the Alps became littered with broken crampon parts marking a return to the more flexible versions that we see today. We are not 100% sure but we think this pair came with a rucksack full of gear donated by Mountain Guide, Sam Crymble, so thanks to Sam or someone else if we’ve got that wrong!