The Simond brothers were blacksmiths in the little town of Chamonix, beneath Mont Blanc, Europe’s highest mountain.

In the early 1800s we find them making agricultural tools, bells for cattle and sheep and equipment for the crystal hunters.

Highly skilled at amalgamating metal and wood together, it’s no surprise that Francois Simond started making ice axes when the ‘Golden Age’ of mountaineering came along in the mid 1800s.

The Simond family continued to produce innovative and functional mountaineering gear for many decades e.g.the Simond Special ice axes which we have here in the collection. Dating from the 1950s, these axes were popular with British mountaineers, being fairly lightweight. Scotland’s legendary ‘ice-man’, Jimmy Marshall, used one throughout his illustrious career.

This particular axe would have been imported by Alpine Equipment specialist, Robert Lawrie, who was based in London.

Unfortunately, we don’t know who bought it, nor who donated it to us.