When you walk into an antique store and ask if they have any “York Collars” you never know what you might get…
You see, when a young bull’s horns begin to grow, they grow straight out from his forehead making a pretty effective weapon… To protect themselves and other cattle, the oldtime farmers used to attach a weight to each horn and, thanks to gravity, the horns grew downward instead.

Well come to find out there were, in fact, “York” Cattle Horn Collars, an example of which is shown above. Is this collar some lost relic of The York Barbell Company? Did Bob Hoffman once decide to produce equipment for a whole different market? No one seems to know the answers… yet given the fact that they were cast iron (like many other types of York equipment), that the font is pretty darn close if not identical (a York Barbell Plate is shown at right for comparison), and that this collar is fairly close in function to a York barbell collar, it would not appear to be out of the question… you be the judge.