They called it the Golden Age of mountaineering and it began in the 1860’s when mountaineers, mainly British, started to climb the major Alpine summits by a variety of routes. Local guides were employed and both employer and employee required ice axes and it was almost universal that the local blacksmiths turned their skills into making the new product, adopting the techniques of agricultural tool production into producing ice axes. Famous names appeared such as Stubai, Simond and Charlet in France and Grivel in Italy. Things were a little different in Switzerland where each alpine valley seems to have used the local blacksmith rather than there being a main producer. This has led to a vast array of Swiss ice axes from the early days, many of which are extremely rare, and,of course, no longer made. The Willisch brothers started making ice axes in the little village of Tasch in the Zermatt valley of Switzerland around 1900 and many famous mountaineers were to buy one in the years that followed…the most notable being Andrew Irvine who took a ‘Willisch’ to Everest in 1924 and whilst Irvine and his climbing partner, George Mallory, perished, Irvine’s ice axe was subsequently recovered. Mick Tighe visited Konstanz Willisch back in the 1980’s and helped him make one of the last ever Willisch axes which he subsequently bought for 150 SF, and here it is in our collection, in mint condition. A fine piece of mountaineering history if ever there was!