York Barbell Vintage Roundhead Dumbbells

York Roundheads are by far my favorite vintage York Dumbbells. They are not the finest quality, but they are definitely cool. They are not nearly as rare as a lot of people like to say they are. They are all over the place. You just have to look. They are a cool way to have some vintage in your gym that will get used a lot. They bring a high price a lot of the time, especially for the big ones.

Daily drivers despite collectability. Yes ... I could save a ton of space with a pair of REP x PÉPINs. So the fact I devote this much of my limited gym footprint to these dumbbells probably says something about how I feel about York Roundheads. But on the flip side ... I do not have the money or space to buy a pair of 9s or 80s - 100s to complete the set.

Ok, don't shoot me... I love the vintage history of these, and as a collector, I can respect putting together a set. However, for daily lifting, I'm not a big fan. I prefer the feel of a modern urethane set with good knurling over these. And don't forget - if you drop them, you will cry until you realize what you can sell the blobs for.

These are my daily drivers slightly biased because of the history behind them. They do lack knurling but that has never been a problem for me. Great dumbbells.

Picked up a 5-50 non stamped set and man these are awesome !! No knurling to me feels amazing, absolutely love how they look and it’s a nice simply design. Hope I piece together the rest of the set over time.

Love my collection. I have no gripes with the knurling (or lack there of) and i’ve never seen a handle snap.

Definitely a cool novelty item or a showcase piece for your gym, but other than that they're not awesome to lift with. The handles are quite small on them

Though my not my "daily driver" in terms of dumbbells, no one can deny the nostalgia of the York roundhead. Not entirely practical, especially in the higher denominations (and overpriced these days) but nothing like lifting with your father's and grandfather's iron.

Great for collectors but there's a reason we don't make them like this anymore, over time the handles snap and that's what blobs are made from

Of course these are nice. Of course they have a well documented history and of course these are collectable and look amazing. However, performance-wise, these fall short. Non-knurled and skinny handles make heavier movements sketchy. You can always chalk up but that's just an extra step to achieving the same goals that a knurled dumbbell can accomplish. My set now just sits on the rack as a show piece since I'll never get rid of them. Yes, they look really cool and they have a great backstory but that's the only thing that these have going for them. When visitors come by to get a lift in, they often gravitate towards them but I steer them to my CAP dumbbell set since those can take an actual beating whereas the York's can't since the heavier ones have more potential to bend if they were to drop them. I'm not much of a vintage collector as these just sort of fell into my lap but knowing the value of these and the history that these have, I'll never get rid of these. Maybe when I'm long and gone and when these get passed down to my kids, they'll get a nice paycheck out of them.