Introduction
In this Vintage Weights Deep Dive with Rob from @VintageWeightsPGH, we chat about how it started, his golden goose, interactions with CT Fletcher, best restoration methods, what are vintage weights, and MORE.
You can watch/listen on YouTube, Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get podcasts. An outline of the conversation is below.
(0:00) Background info
Rob is a husband, father of 4, and a veteran. He runs Vintage Weights PGH on Instagram and YouTube, where he shares his passion for the physical history of weightlifting.
Through these channels, he covers weight plates, barbells, equipment, and anything in between that is related to strength sports. He dives into the history of these things and shares them on his page. This includes restoration projects, and he also dives into reviews and reviews of new and vintage equipment, which is unique.
(2:04) It all started with a Cap Weight Set…
About six years ago, Rob started his home gym journey with a Cap weight set. After reading an article on how inaccurate weights are, he took his to the bathroom scale and was horrified to find how inaccurate the weights were.
Wanting something better, he did an internet search of accurate budget weights, and that led him to milled era York plates. This was the start of his vintage journey.
(4:00) Current collection
After a while of building out the complete York set (3 years of searching), he ended up compiling an extensive ‘want list.’ Rob learned that many people are not interested in selling 1 or 2 plates at a time, so after buying complete sets from people, he learned about many other brands, and the hobby took off.
(5:23) The golden goose
Rob references what sits over his right shoulder, a set of York deep-dish plates. They were the ‘golden goose’ for a while.
In the game of searching for the missing piece of his collection, Rob comes into a conflict of paying what people are asking or paying more because he knows what a lot of this stuff is worth. Regarding the York deep dish plates, Rob got a crazy deal picking them up for about $.30/lb. The new ‘golden goose’ is a set of Jackson’s.
(9:49) What about barbells and dumbbells?
Rob is also into barbells and dumbbells and brings up York Roundheads immediately. He also brings up globe dumbbells, but not until he completes his roundhead collection. The ‘unicorn’ is a set of 9 lb dumbbells.
When it comes to barbells, he just got a York powerbar. He talks about it being tough with barbells because they are just not as functional.
In addition, Rob has a modern Texas Powerbar but would love to find an older original Texas Powerbar.
(12:30) Is this hobby eating money?
Rob prides himself on finding the vintage weights in the wild for pennies on the dollar. There are some things (currently the Jacksons) he considers buying from collectors at a premium price, but most of his stuff was found and bought very inexpensively.
(13:50) Barbell of choice
Rob has a Rogue Ohio Power bar and a modern Texas Powerbar. He will work on some vintage barbells for squats and other movements where knurling is not as important.
(15:44) Where to find vintage.
Rob has his go-to search engines and search terms, but he says you never know where you’ll find vintage weights. He is working on a series to answer this question because he is often asked.
He did give us his top 3 words of advice.
- First, search the used market frequently (like 20-30 times a day).
- The second piece of advice is to be ready to drive.
- The third thing is to get into the community and make friends. Rob brings up some Facebook groups that help him find items.
(19:00) CT Fletcher
Rob worked with CT Fletcher to find the ‘Holy Grail’ of ‘pig iron.’ He ended up searching and restoring the set for CT and sending it to him. CT stays in contact with Rob and continues to have a relationship-centered around their love for vintage weights.
(20:13) Most paid for a piece of vintage
In the community, there are situations where people will pay north of $5,000 for a set of plates. Rob mainly searches for the deals but does bring up when he was trying to complete his full set looking for one plate and buying a whole gym. One of the gyms he had to buy ended up being over $1,000 for the one pair of plates he wanted.
(23:14) Restoration
Rob is working on a video series on how to strip down vintage weights to their original paint. His go-to for this is oxalic acid.
That is what he recommends doing instead of stripping them down to bare iron and losing the original paint forever.
(28:16) The size of the vintage community
The Facebook groups are in the hundreds, but there are not the masses that know about these groups. The communities are full of knowledge, so even if you don’t have vintage weights, you can still go on and learn about the history of the weights.
(29:54) Efren
Efren has one of the best setups out there. Most people in the home gym community know the gym by the name. “He is one of a kind” and Rob speaks with a lot of respect about what he’s doing.
(33:00) What are Vintage Weights?
Rob has a definition for a vintage weight: anything that is old and valued in some way.
More Info
- Subscribe to The Garage Gym Experiment Podcast
- We post a lot of blog posts, and it may be challenging to keep up. Subscribe to Knurled News to help stay in the loop more concisely. For example, here was a recent edition of Knurled News.
I have a large set of vintage dumbbells with Notre Dame stenciled on them. Looking for any information on them. Thanks
Please reach out to Vintage Weights PGH