Ellis Brigham is calling these guys ‘horizontals, medium thick blade’ in his 1970s catalogue, item B6 in the Stubai section above. The catalogue tallies nicely with the 1970 stamp on one of these two, and we suspect the other is from the same era.

Stubai of Austria and the Italian company, Cassin, were the main importers of pitons to the UK in the 1960s/70s until a Welsh company called Clogwyn (Clog) came along (circa 1965) and slowly captured the market. The piton market slowly eroded over the next couple of decades as nuts, chocs, wires and cams became the norm for rock protection. Big wall climbers still use lots of pitons, winter climbers like them too as they hammer nicely into icy cracks.

These two Stubais once belonged to Mick Tighe’s mountain guiding company, Nevis Guides.