Vintage carabiners

Any have some fun facts or history about any of these retro biners?

X3 climb high

X1 rei

X1 eiger usa

X3 chouinard

X2 wild country 

X1 betabiner 

X1 smc usa 

X1 Salewa royal robbins

X1 smc

X1 omega pacific 

X1 msr 

listed in order from top left to bottom right, if you align with text on cardboard

Some of those are still on my rack.

I don't think anything with a wire gate can qualify as vintage, but maybe that's just me?

The Salewa Royal Robbins might be a hollow core biner those are a bit unique. As they broke.

Heyzeus wrote:

Some of those are still on my rack.

I don't think anything with a wire gate can qualify as vintage, but maybe that's just me?

Noted the wiregate as "interesting", as its logos and markings are nothing like any of my other camp biners. Thanks for your valuable input!

Nice stash of biners. They're on what I consider the later side of vintage, but certainly far removed from today's modern shiny biners. As far as value, the Royal Robbins is the standout. There are a few versions and it's likely worth $20-$35. The rest are best used as bail biners, anchor biners, boat biners...or general climbing biners. Nothing is wrong with any of them and they still work just as well today as they did in the 80s.

On a personal note, I started collecting REI biners and have a long-running post on the For Sale forum showing the collection thus far and seeking out more examples. I believe your REI biner is a version I do not yet have. If you'd consider parting with it, I'd love to add it to my collection. I'll send you a PM.

Allen Sanderson wrote:

The Salewa Royal Robbins might be a hollow core biner those are a bit unique. As they broke.

I know LaPrade also made hollow biners,and I'm thinking so did Chouinard

Butters wrote:

Any have some fun facts or history about any of these retro biners?

X3 climb high

X1 rei

X1 eiger usa

X3 chouinard

X2 wild country 

X1 betabiner 

X1 smc usa 

X1 Salewa royal robbins

X1 smc

X1 omega pacific 

X1 msr 

listed in order from top left to bottom right, if you align with text on cardboard

Many of what you show are on my rack. I must also be “vintage”   

LL Biner wrote:

I know LaPrade also made hollow biners,and I'm thinking so did Chouinard

I believe they were all made by Salewa. Chouinard's definitely were.

Allen Sanderson wrote:

I believe they were all made by Salewa. Chouinard's definitely were.

Hi Allen. Do you know whether Salewa were actually a manufacturer - or whether they were a brand with items made for them under their brand name?

Ignatius Pi wrote:

Hi Allen. Do you know whether Salewa were actually a manufacturer - or whether they were a brand with items made for them under their brand name?

Salewa is a manufacturer, they made gear under their own name but also made gear for Chouinard (carabiners, crampons) and others. Often the items had both Chouinard and Salewa markings.

Ignatius Pi wrote:

Hi Allen. Do you know whether Salewa were actually a manufacturer - or whether they were a brand with items made for them under their brand name?

A few companies have been around for awhile; Grivel, Edelweiss,Edelrid, Salewa is approaching one hundred 

The others I believe are all over one hundred years old

Allen Sanderson wrote:

Salewa is a manufacturer, they made gear under their own name but also made gear for Chouinard (carabiners, crampons) and others. Often the items had both Chouinard and Salewa markings.

Yes - I still have a couple of those forged Salewa/Chouinard biners somewhere; early 1970s. I think.

My question wasn't very well worded. I should have asked if you knew to what extent Salewa remained a manufacturer. When those hollow biners were around [1980s; not sure if they went back earlier than that] Salewa had a pretty large and diverse range of both hard- and software; tents, rucksacks, sleeping bags, clothing, footwear, helmets, biners, pins, ice screws, crampons, ice axes, hammers, belay devices, prusik devices, rappel devices, fifis, camping accessories - and probably lots more. It seems unlikely that one company would itself manufacture all of those things - or even most of them. For a company with its origin in saddlery and leathergoods - Sättel und Lederwaren - it seems more likely that they would have done the 'textile' manufacturing in-house and contracted the hardware out - either to metalworking companies in their home city of Munich, or to specialist climbing equipment manufacturers there or elsewhere. Presumably somebody in Munich had already been making ASMU biners, unless Schuster went to somewhere like Fulpmes to get them made; not sure whether the Stubai company/consortium actually existed at the time, but the individual workshops would have. Looking in a 1980s Salewa catalogue, wherein Salewa brand products appear side by side with similar products from other companies for which they were presumably acting as distributor, it's noticeable how similar, identical even, some details appear between the two; an ice axe that looks identical to an adjacent Stubai model, and a locker biner with exactly the same gate and finish as one from Kong, are a couple of examples. So I've often wondered who actually made those hollow biners, of which there seem to have been five models: aluminum offset 'D' [could this be the Chouinard model?]; aluminum oval [Robbins; appears in that Salewa catalogue as 'Otto Wiedemann Hohlkarabiner]; aluminum offset 'D' locker; steel offset 'D'; steel offset 'D' locker. Was it indeed Salewa, despite my doubts; an engineering shop in Munich; or one of the other European biner manufacturers? Although one biner in the cataloque is marked 'West Germany' which appears to narrow it down - unless it simply refers to the location of the Salewa company; I can't remember what regulations applied to product marking back then. I have a few of those aluminum offset 'D's. They are completely black and the only markings are 2000kp and 800kp on one side of the spine to indicate major and minor axis strengths, the name 'SLEE' on the other side, and 'tested' on the gate. I think Slee might have been a Netherlands company, where the name means 'sled, sleigh'. Don't know whether the black color suggests a special forces market. No mention of 'Salewa' - but I'm sure I got them via the Salewa UK distributor at the time, and I think that 'tested' is stamped in the same way on the gates of those forged Chouinard biners that I mentioned [can't find them at the moment]. Do my Slee biners sound the same as the hollow Chouinards?

How much do they weigh?

LL Biner wrote:

How much do they weigh?

Hah! Just in the middle of composing a reply to your earlier post, querying whether or not Edelweiss was ever a company, as opposed to a brand.

Can't find anything sensitive enough to weigh a biner, but the catalogue quotes 43gm for that aluminum offset 'D'.

Do you know any more about the Laprade one? I could only find this old ad: https://sites.google.com/view/caffmeux/mus%C3%A9e-de-lescalade-de-seb/matos/joannylapraderen%C3%A9e-desmaison/1978-mousqueton-laprade-2200 . The two biners there clearly aren't hollow; they're too heavy. But 1978 could well be too early anyway; the Salewa catalogue to which I keep referring is from 1983. Again, I don't know whether Laprade actually manufactured their own biners; those two look very similar to others made by Contat Frères for several French brands, probably including those central three bent-gate models in Butters' second photo.

I recall another biner with Desmaison's name on it. It was a regular 'D' and looked like it might have been forged. Only ever saw red ones. I think it came from Laprade but can't remember whether their name was on it as well. I think it was marketed in the UK by Troll.

Edit. Ah sorry - that link doesn't appear to work. Should be ok if you just copy and paste into Google.

LL Biner    wrote:

<A few companies have been around for awhile; Grivel, Edelweiss,Edelrid, Salewa is approaching one hundred 

The others I believe are all over one hundred years old>

Edelweiss is certainly a brand but I don't know whether it's ever been a company. It used to belong to the Austrian ropemaker Teufelberger; they made a wide range of rope types and used 'Edelweiss' as a name under which to market their climbing ropes - in much the same way, I assume, that New England Ropes used the brand 'Maxim' and British Ropes used 'Viking'. [New England Ropes, of course, is now part of the Teufelberger Group.] When the Edelweiss brand expanded to include sewn webbing gear I've no idea whether Teufelberger manufactured these products in-house or contracted them out. The Edelweiss brand was sold to Béal in 2000; the Béal website simply refers to "buying out its Austrian competitor Edelweiss". After initial re-housing in Rivory Joanny's old premises in Saint-Chamond, earlier acquired by Béal and about 30km from their Vienne HQ, Edelweiss products now appear to be manufactured in Béal's Madagascar factory - or, at least, the last two Edelweiss items that I bought, a rope and a harness, were made there. Until recently the postal address for 'Edelweiss' was the same as Béal's factory in Vienne but this now appears to have moved a short distance to premises in Pont-Évêque. I've no idea whether Béal would have any reason to turn the brand into its own company - a wholly owned subsidiary, presumably - or whether anything should be read into the lack of a French company entity suffix, the equivalent of 'Inc', 'Ltd', 'Plc' in other words, after the name 'Edelweiss' in the address given on the website.

And yes; lots of the original names have been around for a long time, often starting off a couple of hundred years ago or more as blacksmiths or somesuch.

Ignatius Pi wrote:

Hah! Just in the middle of composing a reply to your earlier post, querying whether or not Edelweiss was ever a company, as opposed to a brand.

Can't find anything sensitive enough to weigh a biner, but the catalogue quotes 43gm for that aluminum offset 'D'.

Do you know any more about the Laprade one? I could only find this old ad: https://sites.google.com/view/caffmeux/mus%C3%A9e-de-lescalade-de-seb/matos/joannylapraderen%C3%A9e-desmaison/1978-mousqueton-laprade-2200 . The two biners there clearly aren't hollow; they're too heavy. But 1978 could well be too early anyway; the Salewa catalogue to which I keep referring is from 1983. Again, I don't know whether Laprade actually manufactured their own biners; those two look very similar to others made by Contat Frères for several French brands, probably including those central three bent-gate models in Butters' second photo.

I recall another biner with Desmaison's name on it. It was a regular 'D' and looked like it might have been forged. Only ever saw red ones. I think it came from Laprade but can't remember whether their name was on it as well. I think it was marketed in the UK by Troll.

Edit. Ah sorry - that link doesn't appear to work. Should be ok if you just copy and paste into Google.

All I remember is that Wild Things brought them in, I'm guessing early-mid eighties 

Ignatius Pi wrote:

aluminum oval [Robbins; appears in that Salewa catalogue as 'Otto Wiedemann Hohlkarabiner]; aluminum offset 'D' locker; steel offset 'D'; steel offset 'D' locker. 

Interesting note about the Otto Wiedemann biners. This is the first I've seen anything written about them. I have two in my collection and upon looking just now, yes, they're identical to the Royal Robbins biners. Pic included.

LL Biner wrote:

Ok - thanks.

# ClimbingOn:

I notice that the rated strength of the Robbins is less than the Wiedemann. Salewa says ca 1600kp.

Butters wrote:

Here’s a few more that seem interesting

When I got some of the Camp bent gate biners in the top left my climbing partner would not use them. He called them jewellery. I recall they were pretty light for the time. At the time Chouinard Light D's at 50 grams were my light biners. The Camps are about 32 grams. 

Allen Sanderson wrote:

The Salewa Royal Robbins might be a hollow core biner those are a bit unique. As they broke.

Yes i belive that is forth from the bottom on the left. 

Chouinard also made a "Featherweight" oval from that tubular stock. They appear slightly flattened on the side.

I’ve got a few of these hanging around too…