UKH

A 45metre rope was between £30 and £50 in 1979 and a Friend was £8  then.I was just wondering why the rope was so expensive compared to the cam. 

I suspect because making a high quality kernmantel rope was far more technically complex, involving far more sophisticated machinery, and that the early ropes (e.g. Edeldrid) took far longer to make.

Are you sure?

I thought a friend was about £18.

These prices are from an advertisement in a 1979 Climber.

Yeah I remember about £10 in 1980. Shockingly my first sticky boots - Boreal Fires were about £60 in about 1983. You can still buy climbing shoes for that price today. 

You could still buy my Fires for £60!

Cheapest I've heard of a rope was in my student days in early 70s when one of our college club claimed to have surreptitiously dropped a rope into a 50p sale box and then bought it it off an innocent young employee.

Another episode was when a student worked out that rope bought off the reel was cheaper by the metre than a full length item.....the assistant started measuring out the rope then threw up his hands and sold the regular 150' item at the lower price. We were of course blissfully unaware of any possible difference in dynamic properties of rope off the reel (possibly 9mm rope off the reel was dynamic then?).

Ah yes before the cartel between supplies  who withdrew advertising if  sale price was given 

 In fairness it was to protect the small independent retailers  

' Shockingly my first sticky boots - Boreal Fires were about £60 in about 1983. You can still buy climbing shoes for that price today'

In those days, Boreal shoes were manufactured in Spain. These days, most manufacturers make use of cheap Chinese or Vietnamese labour.

Boreal factory is in Villena Spain

http://www.borealoutdoor.com/

Yes,Boreal are still made in Spain and Scarpa rock shoes are made in Italy.I think EB’s were about £20 in 1979. 

1970, 2 x 9mm x 150' Edelrid ropes for £1 deposit from a university club. They didn't want them back when I left but they did keep the deposit.

Bought first rope, 120ft 11mm, in 1969/70. First time out at Subluminal lent it to two others of college club. Leader had climbed on one previous occasion and was held on peg when he fell off Spreadeagle. Coastguard hauled him up and he was whisked away in helicopter....somehow they also whisked away my rope and never returned it. Outcome was college student union bought me a new rope (now 150ft). Oh, and leader was OK....badly bruised and blood coming out of mouth was due to biting tongue.

Not sure about prices in the 70s but i remember buying my first Friends in Rock and Run (thanks Rick!) in 1986 - i recollect them being about £15.

My first friends were free! No 1 from top of Brant Direct, no 3 from Diagonal big bunch we found at stoney.  Days before internet so no option to return to owner.. we did ask in the Moon at Stoney.

I seem to remember that when friends first came out they advertised as a set of 3 for £21.

As recently as 2004/5 when I started climbing a set of three WC friends cost £80, or if you went for rock empire ones you could get them for £20-25 each. A decent half rope cost at least £80 at the same time I think, probably more like £100 unless you bought a pair on a good deal. The cost of cams does seem to have rocketed more than ropes.

One possible explanation could be that ropes haven't evolved much since the 70s so as sales volumes have increased enormously over that time (far more climbers now) the economies of scale have improved whereas cams are constantly changing and evolving requiring more retooling and manufacturing costs as well as much more research and development costs. Since outside the UK and USA almost nobody seems to climb trad much, the expanding number of climbers hasn't increased the volume of cam sales as much as rope sales so the economies of scale aren't as good either.

Just a thought.

Certainly, whilst the basics are the same, cams are now much more sophisticated beasts to that which Jardine/Vallance unleashed on the world.

Maybe you should travel a bit! Your statement above is way off the mark, there is heaps of trad climbing throughout the world. I've climbed masses of trad routes in a fair few countries in Europe - Alps, France, Switzerland, Corsica, Sweden, Norway. What about all those trad climbing venues in Africa, the Antipodes, Canada, South America, Asia, Greenland? 

Ok so my post was a slight exaggeration, but it's not that far off the mark.

A lot of the more faraway venues you mention are largely only climbed in by Europeans and Americans, how many Greenlanders are actually out those on those big walls for example?  So yes, some non British and Americans do climb trad there but they are only a small fraction of climbers as a whole.

In the major climbing countries of Europe trad is the exception rather than the rule and the majority of climbers in those countries don't climb trad. I've met loads of European climbers who think we're all crazy because the only thing they know about trad is what they've seen in Hard Grit videos and suchlike. Of course some Europeans do climb trad but not many.

Whilst the majority of British and American climbers will have a rack of cams the opposite is true for most of Europe.