Iron Island Vintage Weight Plates

These plates are famous as the first custom plates of the York milled series and their success convinced York to start making other custom forgings. These plates were produced in the 1990s for the legendary hardcore Iron Island Gym owned by Dr. Ken Leistner, in Oceanside, NY. The plates were painted in a very unique lavender color, which was actually an error at the York factory but is now iconic. Here is some history from Dr. Ken himself: “Let me give you two answers. I had badgered Jan Dellinger of York, who in turn, teamed up with me to badger Vic Standish who was President of York at the time, to make custom plates for us. To this point in time, though it seems like a no-brainer now, York had not customized plates for anyone. I thought it was a natural for the various collegiate strength programs and Jan, of course, agreed. York was, at the time, York, and did not embrace innovation. Finally, the Univ. of Hawaii talked Vic into "trying" to make a customized 45-pound plate and they were beautiful: black York 45, lettered with the Hawaii "H" with a rainbow emanating from it as per their athletic dept. logo of the time (1992). A light bulb sort of went on and Vic and the others down there said, "Yeah, this could work" and they agreed to make a mold for us at Iron Island Gym and I had 230 "Iron Island" 45s made. With our clientele, we actually needed that many! We wound up having them painted in the York factory, up to then, limited to black or what they called "hammer-tone blue", with what they called "Dr. Ken Purple," but it was actually lavender because it was the only purple they had or could get at the time. We had asked for and expected "purple" but the plates were alas, lavender. Thank goodness all of the pro athletes and competitive lifters we had as well as the bikers and area tough guys who all called our place their training home, kept the reputation for toughness up or we could have been a laughing stock."