A friend gave me a book on the history of figure skating and I asked "So where did the toepick come from?" You can see in the early pictures (drawings mostly) of people on pond ice that there is no toepick, but those up curled blades (I assume to keep you from tripping on the irregular ice). Then through the early part of this century the quality of the photos is just lousy. You can see boots and a kind of dim blade against the white ice background, but you can't tell if there's a toepick or not. Then in the thirties there's clear pictures of toepicks.

So what happened? Did some guy break off the tip of his curved blade and discover he could do a different kind of jump? Who was it?

I have this huge expensive book on figure skating and it talks about everything (including boots, costumes, and obscure competitions in Canada), even the design of the rocker. But no info on toepicks.

Anyone know when they were introduced, and by whom?

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I've seen this names on several websites:

In 1865, Jackson Haines, a famous American skater, developed the two plate all metal blade. The blade was attached directly to Haines' boots. The skater became famous for his new dance moves, jumps and spins. Haines added the first toe pick to skates in the 1870's, making toe pick jumps possible.


This snippet is from http://inventors.about.com/b/2007/01...ice-skates.htm

No idea the validity of this information, but lots of website say it was Haines. Maybe you could start your research with him and see where it leads?

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