Nuts Museum

2001 a Nut Odyssey

Bonjour,

I live in Ajaccio on the island of Corsica where I worked for many years as a photographer. I have also been a collector of climbing equipment for many years now, specializing in "artificial chockstones". As a history buff, I have founded and been running the Nuts Museum here in Ajaccio. I wrote the article Nuts' Story: 2001 a Nut Odyssey published in the British magazine High Mountain Sports in June 2001 to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the first purpose designed nut ever marketed, the John Brailsford Acorn. My second article Nuts' Story: Clockwork Friends came out in the same magazine in October 2003 (under the title Nuts' Story: Adjustable Expanding Protection). As usual, John Brailsford translated my poorly written English into good Whymper prose. Maybe you have spotted the poster/calendar published in High Mountain Sports in December 1999 (shown above). It was my personal way to welcome the millennium. A half of a century of "artificial chockstones" were used to write 2000 on a background, ranging from the original British machine nuts to the most sophisticated camming devices, including several rare prototypes. I have a very large collection of climbing equipment, if not the largest, but I am still looking for a small number of hard-to-find nuts and in spite of a great deal of research, there are still few old protection devices which my collection is unfortunately missing. If you have any of these items and are willing to part with them, I would be sincerely grateful. The following treasures would be a welcome addition to the Nuts Museum:

MOAC ( England )
MOAC n°4 on wire
(The bottom right nut on white tape is a n°4 - what is wanted is that nut on wire like the top three)

BRAILSFORD John (England)
Acorn (1961) medium and large:

CAMPBELL MOUNTAINEERING (USA)
Wedgefast (1976/1977) #1 and #8
Saddlewedge (1976/1977) #1 and #8

Cheetas, all sizes: In 1966/67 along with his brother Roger and a climbing companion Colin Downer, Guy Lee manufactured wedge shaped nuts, called Cheeta, and sold them on the climbing scene in the Peak District. These nuts were used by Guy Lee and various colleagues on early ascents of routes like Mousetrap on Gogarth, and Nexus on Dinas Mot (Terry Bolger who was leading the overhang on this route fell on a Cheeta and it remained jammed in there for years).

CHOUINARD EQUIPMENT (USA)
Tube Chock (1973) #4 (without notches)
Tube Chock (1974) #6 (with notches)