York Barbell Club

[irongrandpa]

More pictures.http://forum.bodybuilding.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=6642551&d=1392513040[/img]

[AttyGuy]

Violets are blue.
York is black iron,
The rest is dog pooh.



List of York Men (and Woman, plus MUTASSIN):

AttyGuy #1
amimalfan #2
Cleveland33 #3
ProteinandIron *#4
Vermonter #5
Daniel327 #6
Skidmarx #7
ffrink #8
Ndmike99 #9
OSUDimond#10
Painted_klown #11
Nakres1984 #12
Keetman #13
Buffbrown21 #14
Matrix563 #15
KastorTroy #16
ExCompetitor #17
twodog #18
sackamous #19
jackbravo #20
skrebs01 #21
Spinlock #22
TLYNCH777 #23
hulked #24
Allisonforeman #25
Brucedelaney #26
EEB_27 #27
Pumping4life #28
Biggerfoot #29
GarageIron #30
RockCrshr #31
snowone #32
Rockettrucker #33
Bloodtype3r #34
BigOrange865 #35
ClaricSTI #36
xephonics #37
ZeroXero #38
DugB #39
urbanlifter #40
dhartnet #41
SkinnySquats #42
Morebarbell #43
Gene19728 #44
conan1927 #45
2MoreRepz #46
judgecrandall #47
aclockworkoi #48
weisgarb #49
Vinko #50
dpaz51 #51
## 52 to 53 - reserved
aj2754 #54
# 55 - reserved
irongrandpa #56
##57 to 98 - reserved
MUTASAN #99
Slumpbusters #100

[TLYNCH777]

More pictures.http://forum.bodybuilding.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=6642551&d=1392513040[/img]

Really nice plates and bar ... I have yet to come across an unmilled 45 but have several 25s

[TLYNCH777]

Great info Atty ...

Skinny any chance you would you be able to print up a few T shirts like this in a 50% cotton 50% polyester ?

[AttyGuy]

Here's pictures and an official request to be a member of the York crew.

All the 25's are milled and look the same.

Of the various milling patterns on 25s, this is my favorite and I have two with similar grooving. Nice.

[morebarbell]

Nice set, IG.

Atty, did the oly curl bar and the oly upgrade kit have bronze bushings?

I'm enjoying the 60's York bar that I picked up recently. I haven't finished cleaning the sleeves but the bar was in really good condition with most of the blue intact. Now I want MORE!

[AttyGuy]

My 60's bar is similar in color. The blue is awesome.

I will check tomorrow, but I don't there were brass bushings in the sleeves.

[Slumpbusters]

Great info Atty ...

Skinny any chance you would you be able to print up a few T shirts like this in a 50% cotton 50% polyester ?

Great shirt! I'd be in for a couple.

[AttyGuy]

There is a cooler one from the 50's. . . .

[AttyGuy]

[SkinnySquats]

We all (should) know that Dymek was the original inventor of the EZ-curl bar and he sold the patent to Jackson, who in turn sold the patent to Hoffman in 1962, two years before the patent was to expire.

Atty, great stuff & interesting version of events. The story that I heard, is that York purchased the EZ Kurl patent in 1964, but was illegally copying the same design for some time prior. Also, the standard curl bars had welded inner flange since as early as 1964 & cost $10.00. A bb member sent me the ad yesterday. Maybe he will post it or give me permission to..

[AttyGuy]

York was welding the inner collars on standard bars as late as 1971. I would guess they stopped when they realized they could sell the upgrade kit for standard bars. By the mid70's. York does not appear to be welding the inner collars on standard bars. I am not surprised that York may have been selling before the company owned the patent.

[AttyGuy]

Opens up a whole new avenue for collecting.

[SkinnySquats]

3 plate clean and press, awesome.

[AttyGuy]

Skinny, note the squatting attachment in this catalog insert:




And here's an old power rack ad:

[SkinnySquats]

Cool. Where do you find these ads? Lol. And what is a "nickel plated milled bar"?

[AttyGuy]

Cool. Where do you find these ads? Lol. And what is a "nickel plates milled bar"?

I'm Yorkman!


The interwebz, brah. Later, I am posting on the fabled York Swedish bar.

[SkinnySquats]

Skinny, note the squatting attachment in this catalog insert:

The bar on the right looks like the 7' Hercules "555" bar. Also the uprights are deeper on this rack. I guess that's why they call it a power rack instead of ISO.

[morebarbell]

I like the model numbers... "No Bras"!

[AttyGuy]

I was talking with a friend (and IH member) the other day as he was picking up some of the York 45s that I was selling. We got to talking about barbells, and he commented that he thought the York "Swedish" bar was the Holy Grail of York Barbells. There's much out there on York's Swedish steel bar, but Dr. Ken Leistner has the following in History of Powerlifting, Weightlifting and Strength Training – Part 19:

In the early and mid-1970’s, York experimented with a number of different barbells. The chrome-vanadium steel Olympic bar, sold in the late 1960’s and early ‘70’s was touted as being super strong and virtually unbendable. They came out with what the company termed a “Swedish Steel bar.” Most of the lifters I knew who were familiar with this rather infrequently seen bar called it a “stainless steel” Olympic barbell because that’s what it looked like. Reuben Weaver, an expert on all things related to York Barbell as is Jan Dellinger, was kind enough to check old York price lists for me to help trace the sales of the different York bars. Interestingly, York did in fact offer a “Stainless Steel Olympic Barbell” from January 1, 1979, with its final appearance on the York price list coming in May of 1984. The Swedish Steel bar was marketed for a short period of time, through 1973 and 1974 with Jan and Reuben being able to trace its sales through the June 1975 York price list. By January of 1976, it was relegated to history. It was certainly beautiful but manufacturing costs prevented its wide-spread sales and it was rather quickly dropped from the list of offerings. What Jan termed “the wildly escalating cost of steel” made the bar “prohibitively expensive to produce” and retail sales of the bar did not justify continued supply to the lifting public. I know that I bought into their advertising. Besides the fact that the loft above my father’s iron shop was more or less open and subject to the climatic elements which made a stainless type of steel bar a definite attraction, the bar was absolutely beautiful and the hype surrounding it won me over. I will admit first that I may have taken the advertising campaign in, hook, line, and sinker as the old expression goes, but I was also anxious to buy into the entire idea of having such an exotic and different bar, one I believed could withstand any insult.

1975 was the last year that York listed the Swedish bar in its catalog. Below is a pic of the 1975 catalog:

But when did York start selling the Swedish bar? Again, Dr. Ken answers, in History of Powerlifting, Weightlifting and Strength Training – Part 20:

Mention of York’s Swedish steel bar brought a number of e mails to the Titan Support Systems office. There are guys out there, and ladies please allow me to use the term “guys” because there were so few women involved with training until the 1980’s and the “old days” are my reference point, that are equipment nuts like I am. They know the various manufacturers, the differences in tubing gauge from one brand of equipment to another, and are truly into the nuances that make the knurling on one type of bar a bit different than another. These are the ones asking and the York Swedish steel bar was not a widely sold item so there is an interest. Once again I turned to Jan Dellinger and Reuben Weaver and even to my surprise, learned that this specific bar was sold for a much longer period of time than I had recalled. According to this dynamic duo of historical knowledge, the earliest ad located for the Swedish steel bar appeared in the April 1966 issue of Muscular Development magazine. For those who are too young to remember, Strength And Health was the “house organ” for York Barbell Company and their many products. They were considered by most serious trainees, and certainly anyone who considered themselves Olympic weightlifters or “real lifters” as the only magazine worth reading. The emphasis, as the title stated, was upon the sport of Olympic weightlifting but also offered articles related to nutrition, supplements, bodybuilding, health, and sometimes goofy things like controlling dandruff, all considered to be part of a “healthy life style.” When odd lifting began to morph into the official sport of powerlifting, York immediately jumped on the bandwagon to take commercial advantage of this and began publishing Muscular Development in 1964. They specifically placed their emphasis upon powerlifting because they realized there was a void in the field and filling in with some bodybuilding allowed them to present a very enjoyable publication.

So, York offered the Swedish bar from 1966 to 1975. Anyone have one? Anyone, besides Dr. Ken?

[ndmike99]

I was talking with a friend (and IH member) the other day as he was picking up some of the York 45s that I was selling. We got to talking about barbells, and he commented that he thought the York "Swedish" bar was the Holy Grail of York Barbells. There's much out there on York's Swedish steel bar, but Ken Leistner has the following in History of Powerlifting, Weightlifting and Strength Training – Part 19:



1975 was the last year that York listed the Swedish bar in its catalog. Below is a pic of the 1975 catalog:

But when did York start selling the Swedish bar? Again, Dr. Ken answers, in History of Powerlifting, Weightlifting and Strength Training – Part 20:



So, York offered the Swedish bar from 1966 to 1975. Anyone have one? Anyone, besides Dr. Ken?

How would one distinguish a Swedish bar from others?

[AttyGuy]

Many here have the York power bar from the 1980's. Again, from History of Powerlifting, Weightlifting and Strength Training – Part 19, Dr. Ken has some insight into the power bar and its influence on powerlifting bars:

The York Powerlifting Bar was introduced as a specialty item made for the burgeoning sport. Thicker at 29 mm than the standard 28 mm Olympic bar, it also had a heavier knurling pattern to insure a more secure grip, was noticeably stiffer, and provided center knurling. When Olympic barbells were first introduced by York, and others, there was a center knurling to allow for one-handed lifting. Though I usually date myself with my decades-old references in this series of articles, I was not around for the original grouping of Olympic lifts but remember please that the lifts done included not only the two-hands version of the press, snatch, and clean and jerk, but also the one-handed version. Thus, a center knurl was needed on the bar. According to Jan Dellinger, around 1988 to 1990 York removed the center knurl from the bar as Olympic lifters complained that the knurling cut or scraped their necks when racking the bar for the clean and jerk. The new powerlifting bar always had a center knurling that was as heavily and sharply grooved as that provided for the handgrips. This center knurl allowed the powerlifting bar to “dig into” the tee shirt or skin of the upper back when the bar was held for the squat and was readily accepted by the powerlifting community. Others copied the new power bar, with Image/Champion, and the original Texas Power Bar by Buddy Capps Welding being the most commonly seen in contests. Sutherland of course, improved on these. Making reference to the Lee Moran “bar explosion” at the 1984 Senior National Powerlifting Championships at Dayton, Ohio Jim developed the Passanella Bar.

[AttyGuy]

How would one distinguish a Swedish bar from others?

That's the question, brother. I wish I knew. . . .

[AttyGuy]

What I'd really be interested in, is the 5' International bar with revolving sleeves, listed in this 1988 catalog:





It would appear that the 5' bar does not have a split sleeve. Also, the bars from 1998 do not appear to be blued, and "chrome vanadium" is gone.

[gene19728]

That's the question, brother. I wish I knew. . . .

I have 6 bars from the 70's/80's. I am going to take a better look at them and try to catalog what the differences are between them.

[ndmike99]

I do not know if anyone can identify or date a bar based on the collars but I have a late 60s bar where the end collars have an allen head screw but are also threaded themselves and screw on to the bar.

Anyone have any info on these?

[twodog]

The picture above is an ad from 1975, when did the 310 lb. sets change over to (4) pairs each of 25's and 10's, instead of (2) pairs each of 35's, 25's, and 10's. I'm fairly sure that it was right after that ad because I grew up remembering S&H and MD magazines without 35's in the late 70's.

I have a chance to buy a complete 400lb set, minus the bar, (4) 45's, 25's, 10's, 5's and (2) 2.5's plus collars. It would be my first complete original set, and I don't need the plates as I have over 2,000lbs, but it would be cool. I would have to eventually find a bar for it, lol. Decisions, decisions.

[AttyGuy]

The picture above is an ad from 1975, when did the 310 lb. sets change over to (4) pairs each of 25's and 10's, instead of (2) pairs each of 35's, 25's, and 10's. I'm fairly sure that it was right after that ad because I grew up remembering S&H and MD magazines without 35's in the late 70's.

I'll check my files, but the 1984 and 1988 catalogs list 35-lb plates as being available. I've heard that York had a gap in 35-lb plate production, leading to two more 25s and 10s in a set. Something about the guy who made them died, or quit. In the 1990's, York changed the 35-lb pattern to a 4-spoke design, similar to the 45, but with the same outer dimensions as the old 35.

I have a chance to buy a complete 400lb set, minus the bar, (4) 45's, 25's, 10's, 5's and (2) 2.5's plus collars. It would be my first complete original set, and I don't need the plates as I have over 2,000lbs, but it would be cool. I would have to eventually find a bar for it, lol. Decisions, decisions.

I have often adjusted my collection to take in a complete set of some guy (now in his 60's or 70's) who bought the set new in the 1970's or 80's. We are stewards of the iron and I do my best to pay respect to the men before me and the iron that will outlast me by maintaining integrity of sets, whenever possible.

[twodog]

I'll check my files, but the 1984 and 1988 catalogs list 35-lb plates as being available. I've heard that York had a gap in 35-lb plate production, leading to two more 25s and 10s in a set. Something about the guy who made them died, or quit. In the 1990's, York changed the 35-lb pattern to a 4-spoke design, similar to the 45, but with the same outer dimensions as the old 35..

I had read somewhere that York was keeping the 35's in the sets until they ran out of them, and that's why the 35lb. plates were always the older style. I never really liked the newer style of 35's, even though they matched the rest of the plates, lol .

I have often adjusted my collection to take in a complete set of some guy (now in his 60's or 70's) who bought the set new in the 1970's or 80's. We are stewards of the iron and I do my best to pay respect to the men before me and the iron that will outlast me by maintaining integrity of sets, whenever possible.

This is how I feel about these plates, lol. I've never considered doing this until now. I'll probably leave them in original condition after a clean up, as long as the rust isn't too bad. Usually I clean up the rust and spray with flat black. Tomorrow I go and look at them.

[SkinnySquats]

I do not know if anyone can identify or date a bar based on the collars but I have a late 60s bar where the end collars have an allen head screw but are also threaded themselves and screw on to the bar.

Anyone have any info on these?

ND, most likely 60's era. (Early 70's tops.) If it has the wider inner flanges, definitely. I have that exact same bar, but it's pretty beat up. One of the donuts is stripped out, but the set screw is holding it in place.