Chouinard Gear Mystery Questions

From Steve - To be clear about the succession of distinct very early Chouinard carabiners, Yvon had dies made to have Alcoa drop forge the carabiner bodies. These dies eventually wear out and the replacement die often reflected subtle design improvements.

The very first die lot did not have CHOUINARD incorporated into the raised lettering on the bodies as they arrived. Tom Frost pointed this out to Yvon the first time that he pulled one out of his pocket and introduced it to Tom as his own product. American made hardware other than military surplus was rare and Tom was a bit skeptical of Yvon's claim of ownership and commented "besides, I don't see your name anywhere on it."

Yvon's quick solution was to have his name carefully ground into the existing first die before the next original die lot was produced. Because the original die was already made and hardened, the added lettering was far from crisp and distinctly raised as compared to the intentional lettering already present in that die. I like to call it the "ghost of Chouinard".

So you have two versions of the first die runs with only the original die lot of perhaps a few hundred lacking "CHOUINARD." I am not quite sure how Bill arrived at his model designations as per his catalog but I don't think it was a direct reflection of the succession of dies as much as perhaps the detailing on the gate or other machining that would have changed once Yvon began assembling and finishing the entire carabiner in quantity.

In any case, the anonymous Alcoa is the rarest of the early Chouinard carabiners and thanks to a timely gear purchase by Roots we have a few examples to show and discuss. Tom's story was the clue that got me looking past the ghost of Chouinard in the first place finally arriving at the proper historical perspective. I haven't had the opportunity to ask Yvon about any of this as I have still not met or interviewed him but hope to in the near future.