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Captain...or Skully
climber
or some such
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Apparently, he thinks it's worth 10-12 Grand.
Yeesh.
It's just a pin, after all.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 4, 2011 - 12:23pm PT
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There are a few of these missing from established collections that show up with a cloud around them occasionally. I hope this isn't one of those.
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Caveman
climber
Cumberland Plateau
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$100.00 shipping via usps priority mail. At least the shipping is reasonable.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 4, 2011 - 12:49pm PT
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No diamond "P" no Salathé...
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MisterE
Social climber
Bouldering the Gnar
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It has the diamond P with "CV" below it - looks authentic.
Anyone know what the CV stands for?
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Off White
climber
Tenino, WA
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Is MTucker the seller?
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steelmnkey
climber
Vision man...ya gotta have vision...
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This piton was hand made by Anton Salathe and has his trademark Diamond P logo clearly stamped into the piton’s chromemoly steel.
Who the hell is ANTON Salathe?
Must be Anton Nelson and John Salathe's love child...
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 4, 2011 - 02:46pm PT
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Too funny...I didn't catch that detail!
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Doug Robinson
Trad climber
Santa Cruz
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Interested that it's located in the Valley.
For that kind of coin it could become tempting to have a diamond-P stamp made up and hand, uh, "forge" some of that "chromemoly." Was that the metal in old Model A axles, the supposed source of "Anton's" metal stock?
If you were a legitimate seller, wouldn't you want to tell the story of where you came across that sucker? Something beyond "may well have been used on the first ascent of Sentinel Rock"? More than one party has hiked all the way up Little Yosemite Valley to climb Sugarloaf Dome, for instance, on the hope that Salathe might have left a pin on his FA in 1951.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 4, 2011 - 03:15pm PT
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Chouinard and Frost swept those old Salathé routes for hardware back in the early sixties. “We were interested in his routes for more than just the climbing. Yvon had a Salathé piton but I didn’t, so we were out scouring the place looking for them. As far as Salathé pitons left in climbs, those guys weren’t too shabby, they didn’t leave much laying around. We did Sugarloaf. We did Church Tower. We did the Northeast Bowl on Sentinel. I finally climbed by a Salathé ring wafer on the South Face of Rixon’s and Harry Daley liberated it for his own collection. He even stamped his own initials on it. Sacrilege!” -Tom Frost
"Salathé saw the need for tougher pitons- thin, reusable ones that could be forced farther into bottomed cracks and pounded into contorted cracks without buckling. He wanted a piton that would dominate the granite, not the other way around…Salathé simply used bars of 40/60 carbon and vanadium alloy steel, which he could have obtained easily and cheaply…The resulting hand-forged and heat-treated pitons, beautifully fashioned into the standard horizontal shape, were far tougher than the European pitons of the day. Most of these handsome objects bore an imprint, a tiny “P” inside a diamond, the logo of his Peninsula Wrought Iron Works."- Steve Roper Camp 4
The notion that John started out with actual axles as metal source is pretty well put to bed by Roper. Same sort of alloy however...
If you were a serious collector that mark would have to be authenticated.
E- Chris Vandiver isn the only CV that comes to mind...
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 4, 2011 - 03:41pm PT
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Because of the ease of driving and cleaning a horizontal style piton in granite corners and flakes, John didn't make very many vertical pitons other than wafers that I have come across personally.
More likely WWII era surplus with an RCS stamp on it and nothing else visible.
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Peter Haan
Trad climber
San Francisco, CA
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Stevie, I have emailed Vandiver just now. I am almost certain this pin was not his at some point---I don't recall him ever taking the time to actually effing stamp his stuff like this. Anyway, I am sure he will reply very soon. Did you know he lives in Bainbridge Island now?
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Jul 4, 2011 - 05:58pm PT
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That is news to me Peter!
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Lambone
Ice climber
Ashland, Or
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Crazy, I mean it's a cool piece of climbing history (assuming it's real),but 10 grand? WTF?
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JEleazarian
Trad climber
Fresno CA
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It would amaze me that anyone who knows what a Salathe piton is would be able or willing to pay $10,000 - $12,000 for one, unless the income levels of dirtbags his risen a lot since my day.
John
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Captain...or Skully
climber
or some such
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Perhaps they think that History is valuable. In a creepy, opportunistic way, perhaps.
They're half right. ;-)
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