I don't know about you guys but I find it strange that some barbell plates and dumbbells feel sort of " alive " and seem to have a feel to them when you use them. You sort of get a connection through the iron that allows you to feel the exercise through the muscles more. It probably sounds bonkers ( crazy ) for non English readers.
I remember when I instructed at Reg Parks gym in Johannesburg, South Africa in the middle to late sixties. all of Reg's weights and equipment were made by a guy called Des Knootze. The dumbells felt good and you got a good response through the muscles, the barbell plates on the other hand felt like lead. Same foundry but a quite different feeling.
Reg had a big mail order/distributer network in South Africa and all of the weights were stored in the celler, two floors below the ground floor of the office block in which Reg had two complet floors, that housed the main bodybuilding gym and above that the Business Men and Womens gym, along with a Judo and Karate gym. Reg was way ahead of the times, as in the business gym all of the clients would have one or other of us instructors as their personal trainer for their workout.
Any how once a week all the distributer orders had to be carried two floors up from the cellar and loaded onto the Reg Parks Gym truck. Believe me after lugging tons of plates up two floors and loading the truck you were wasted, and it was always early in the morning we did this. Luckily all of us, Reg, the instructors and a few of the competitive bodybuilders trained from six to eight in the morning, so at least we trained first, then completly knackered ourselves out up and down the stairs to the celler.
About 35 years ago I convinced my best mate, double NABBA Universe winner Len Sell, to re-equip his London gym with what was then called Professional Dumbells, you know the kind that the old Iron Man mag used to advertise, black plates that fitted onto chrome knurled handels and the held in place with a large screw in bolt that screwed into the end of the dumbell rod. I ordered them, all 6 tons of them from Taiwan, where, I had found out, was where Iron Man sourced them from. I gotta say they all looked great, racks of new, shiney dumbells that no other gym in the UK had at the time. But, to me they just did not have the " feel " of Lens old ones.
I also loved the dumbells in Vince Girondas gym and in Joe Golds World gym at the end of Main Street, Santa Monica. Some things just feel right, or is it just me thinking this way.