Objects Database

Salewa karabiners

Accession Number

1176.2014.1

Object Name

Salewa karabiners

Created

14/11/2014

Creator

Hermione Cooper

Accession Date

14/11/2014

Brief Description

Pair of 'D' shaped snaplock karabiners

Materials

aluminium alloy

Dimensions

11(l) x6(w) cms

Number Of Objects

2

Inscription Description

"(SALEWA) WEST GERMANY ↔2000KP ↕800KP" on both

Colour

silver

Maker

Salewa

Object Production Place

West Germany

Provenance

Carabiner, or karabiner, is the shortened version of Karabinerhaken which literally means karbine hook; karbine being the old world for a rifle. The actual hooks were used to attach the carrying sling to the rifle. The French call their Carabiners ,'mousequeton', musket hook, which means the same thing.
Salewa seems to have started making climbing gear in Munich, Germany in 1935 and made equipment for the German Army during the Second World War - it seems that they moved to Austria some time after that. We're not quite sure when they started making karabiners, but the ones we have here date from the early 1970's and were the lightest ones around at the time, making them very popular with big wall climbers in America who carried lots and lots of karabiners and consequently wanted them to be light.
These two actually came from a collector friend of Mick Tighe's called Art McCarthy, who lives in California, so they may well have been up a couple of big walls.

Acquisition Method

Donated by Art McCarthy

Acquisition Date

14/11/2014

Condition Check Date

14/11/2014

Rules

Spectrum : UK Museum documentation standard, V.3.1 2007

Modified

14/11/2014

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