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karabin museum
Trad climber
phoenix, az
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Topic Author's Original Post - Feb 1, 2011 - 04:04pm PT
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Years ago I got this set of Holubar pitons from Wally Vegors. He climbed with them from 1946 to 1949. I have seen many different shapes of Holubar/Austria pitons, how many different shapes were made?
Does anybody have any Holubar catalogs pre 1964?
All of the pitons in the photo below are stamped "Holubar"
On some of the pitons the word "Holubar" is written in cursive. On other pitons the word "Holubar" is written in capital letters. On the 1940s set of pitons is both cursive and capital mfg markings.
This is the piton pages from the Holubar 1966 catalog:
Holubar history from - Holubar Facebook:
Holubar, a classic brand of the american “Outdoor Gear” , was born in Colorado in 1946 from an idea of Alice and Roy Holubar , and began informally its business with the sale of army surplus down-filled sleeping bags and expanding then the offering to parkas, backpacks and climbing pitons.
For the Holubars their great passion for the outdoors activities gradually turned into a real business until the formal start of Holubar Mountaineering in 1947.
At the beginning the activity developed primarily as a typical "mail order" business to get to 1958 with a catalog of 143 products.
The brand quickly imposed its presence on the market, initially in Colorado and then throughout the United States for the excellent quality of its products and a pioneering approach of Alice and Roy Holubar to whom we owe a great number of technical innovations that have inspired over the years many of the most renowned companies of the 'Outdoor Gear' as the use of nylon, the invention of a special “sandwich” padding made of down feathers and “Holufill” (polyester), conceived to accelerate the drying process or the innovative "wavy" quilting.
From the store in Boulder, adjacent to the first lab, Holubar developed a chain of flagship stores in several U.S. states.
One of the reasons that enact the success of many of the innovations introduced by the Holubars since the early years is that Roy and Alice Holubar had always maintained close relations with the world of climbers and outdoor enthusiasts.
This proximity to the world of outdoor professionals meant that each of the technical innovations introduced by the Holubar was the result of an exchange of ideas with the same users of products and were determined by real needs of functionality arising from experience.
As already happened to other major brands of the american Outdoor Gear business, Holubar also began to gain recognition and fame gradually beyond the scope of professional users: Holubar became one of the best known brands of outerwear of America for general city use. The brand was able to take advantage of this development meeting the tastes of a young audience with stylistic contributions that nothing took off anyway with quality content and functionality of each garment : this ability to combine technical excellence with a contemporary look, took Holubar to gain an important position also in the kids market.
In 1968, the Holubars decided to sell the business and in the ‘80s the brand virtually disappeared from the market; its loyal customers had no choice other than to collect the vintage garments of the brand.
The same customers who now are being involved in bitter fighting auctions on the web ...
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Does anybody know any Holubar piton history?
Or have any Holubar pitons not shown so far..........
Rock on! Marty
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Roots
Mountain climber
SoCal
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Mar 19, 2013 - 11:45am PT
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...you have a great collection!!
Here is a picture of my Holubars:
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Mar 19, 2013 - 12:16pm PT
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Wow, this thread went nowhere first time around and Marty hasn't been on much since.
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nutstory
climber
Ajaccio, Corsica, France
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Mar 19, 2013 - 12:24pm PT
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Phew...! Fortunately, I do not collect pitons, and other pins and pegs. If I did so, such photographs would probably have driven me mad.
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FGD135
Social climber
Boulder Canyon Colorado
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Mar 19, 2013 - 01:33pm PT
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Heard from Leroy Holubar himself, in a conversation about 1982, that he had his own brand of pitons "made by a blacksmith in Nederland (Colorado)".
I don't know if he meant that all of his pins were made there, or just a few designs.
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BooDawg
Social climber
Butterfly Town
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Mar 19, 2013 - 02:00pm PT
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Here are some of my European made pegs. Most of them are Austrian, but I'll have to check for a "Holubar" scribble. Bottom 2 are Cassin.
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guido
Trad climber
Santa Cruz/New Zealand/South Pacific
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Mar 19, 2013 - 03:35pm PT
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Roots
Mountain climber
SoCal
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Mar 19, 2013 - 03:43pm PT
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- this thread has life now!
A few of the ones that I have only say "Holubar Boulder Colorado" but most say that or just the name plus "Made in Austria" or some version of it.
I will take some closeups tonight and post tomorrow.
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McHale's Navy
Trad climber
Panorama City, California & living in Seattle
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Mar 19, 2013 - 05:17pm PT
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Judging by the way some of those 'arrows' are beat up, they probably weren't as tough as the later Chouinards? Those must be the Austrian non-cromemollys.
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Steve Grossman
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Mar 19, 2013 - 10:09pm PT
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I can't post images at the moment but will soon.
The block letter HOLUBAR pitons were made by a non-climber blacksmith named Bob Bruning. Alice and Roy bought some property that had a mine on it and Bob needed something to do so they had him start making pitons.
He made some lovely horizontals out of tool steel that were a step toward alloy steel.
Eventually Holubar and Gerry and introduced alloy steel ringless angles for several years until a well-publicized failure of an inverted Gerry stubby angle that was attributable to a tempering flaw.
The more elaborate stamp represented a collaboration between Holubar and Stubai through Roy's ties to Austria that existed long before Bob Bruning showed up and domestic production started.
I posted the 1971 Holubar catalog here:
http://www.supertopo.com/climbing/thread.php?topic_id=1562234&msg=1710158#msg1710158
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Roots
Mountain climber
SoCal
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Mar 20, 2013 - 11:39am PT
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Thank you for the good info!
I took photos of the stamps - seems to support what's been said.
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hubcap
climber
loveland co
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May 30, 2015 - 06:15am PT
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The piton at the bottom of the photo was given to me by Roy Holubar in the late 1970's or early 1980's. He had a small blacksmith shop (a shed really) across from his house. We went up to take a look around and I spotted this on the ground. He said it was a reject.The top pin was from Friday's Folly crux circa 1973. A split 1/2" Clog angle.
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hubcap
climber
loveland co
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Here is a photo of Roy outside of his shed. Photo - Tia Banfield
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