Craiglist Ice Screws! Laughable.

Is this real? denver.craigslist.org/spo/2…

I mean, seriously?

So for the hell of it I called the guy, he had a british accent. He said he didn't know what brand they are, maybe stubai but not sure. I asked if he had climbed with them and he couldn't really remember. He suspects they are at least 20 years old. So there you go, it's not a scam, it's just some old school climber trying to sell some old hardware. I agree given modern gear I wouldn't choose to carry those screws on my rack, but maybe 20 years ago they were legit.

Vintage stuff for sure.......

Great to use for showing the evolution of the sport....

I saw some very similar screws on ebay. The seller listed them as screws issued to the italian military in the 70's or 80's I think he said. No idea as to whether or not any of that is true.

Warthogs work well in frozen moss, dirt, wood and even as rock pitons. Perhaps they were most useful to push ice plugs out of tubular ice screws. I always used to have one on my mixed rack, but that was definitely BITD.
Mark

Those are old military ice screws. I've got some of same design, shape and length that are black military hollow ice pitons(snarg-like minus the slot). Not in use, just in my museum collection of old climbing crap laying around the house.

Those are Salewa ice screws which were very popular in the 1970's. They had one big problem in that the hole in the center was too small so that when placing the screw the ice would clog up in the hole. That made re-using the screw very difficult so we used to carry them in our clothing hoping that the ice core would melt out between uses.

They would make very good back off screws. It just that repeated placements were difficult.