Please take a moment to consider this:

Pretend for a moment, there was the internet and computers back when the AKC allowed chocolates to be part of the standard.

Would the breeders, exhibitors and fanciers go completely nuts like they are today with the discussion of Silvers, Champagnes or other dilute colors?

I am curious if we would give any credence to the addition of another color if there was no way to whip up a frenzy?

And before you begin thinking chocolate is different, research how it came to be.

What are you talking about when you say to study where and how chocolates came to be? I am not being sassy or mean-spirited about your post.

I always thought the chocolate gene/color came from the same shared ancestors of Newfoundlands and Labradors?

Am I wrong or what?

Someone is going to drag out the silver saw about silver Labs being from Chessies. Note that the Chessie dates back to the Newfoundlands, whether greater or lesser I don't know. The Lab was already accurately pedigreed before the origin of the Chessie. Other breeds were crossed into the original dogs to create the Chessie, including Otterhounds.

And consider, the chocolates were ALWAYS part of the Retriever breed! When the Labrador was registered as a "variety" of Retriever, he was accepted in the three whole colors of the other original Retriever varieties. In that day they were registered by coat type and/or color. There were four distinct varieties: The Golden Retriever registered as such for its longer coat type and its yellow color which ranged from a light to cream to what some would consider a fox red in Labradors. The Flat Coated Retriever registered as such for its long coat and came n both black and liver. The Curly Coated Retriever known for its tightly curled coat, also came in black and liver. And the Labrador Retriever with its short double coat and included all three colors of the Retriever breed. Please not that in Flats and Curly Coats an occasional yellow still is found today but is not accepted in the standard and would be sold as a pet.

The Chesapeake was not included in the early Retriever "Breed". When the numbers of these varieties grew enough to have a large enough gene pool, the varieties were seperated into breeds and the stud books closed.

None of the Retriever Breeds above where ever documented as having a dilute gene. Therefore it does not exist in the original Labrador Retriever but was introduced long after the stud books closed.

Well stated, False Logic. Thank you.

Chocolate have been around since yellows. Early the English referred to a liver color showing up. Get real ! BLACKS, YELLOWS, CHOCOLATES. That is it !

There is a difference between not preferred and culled from the early breeding programs v. non-existent and then spontaneously appearing.

Sounds like another ill-informed silver person trying to twist logic hoping it will stick.

Sorry. Real Lab folks have brains.

Since collor was brought up am just wandering where the Black and Tan came from. Since I know it can be found in rare occasions. So I do find it interesting that the Newfoundland does come in a gray color. Let me just say I am not a fan of the silvers and don't believe they are pure labs but just find this interesting.

I came from the first Labradors bred by the three major kennels which also bred Gordon Setters. Though I haven't seen any proof that the Labs were bred with pointers it was thought back then that no good retriever would be any good without the Setter blood.
Some people had pure Labs without the crossbreeding and the kennels had the Gordon Setter crosses before World War I. The registration and promise of purity of the breed was handed over to the Kennel club. The Kennel Club allowed the crossbreeding of many different dogs into the bloodlines close to a starting point of the year 1915. I would have to look it up from old books to get exact dates.

It's interesting to read that the dilution in Labradors could possibly come from ash Chesapeake Bay Retrievers.
Let's not forget that dilute "Labradors" first appeared in the 1950s in the United States, and that quite a few of those resemble(d) Weimaraners.
I have researched the ancestry of the Labrador Retriever breed in the United Kingdom and I have written about other breeds which were inbred to improve the Labrador breed. Among these dogs were some Chesapeake Bay Retrievers. I mentioned the Chesapeake Bay Retriever bitch Cordalys, born in 1923, who produced the inbred Micklefield Juno, who in turn produced Sharedoles Cracker, a male black Labrador.
So we know who these Chesapeake Bay Retrievers were, which leaves us with some questions:
1. Why would a Labrador breeder in the 1920s use a dilute dog to improve the Labrador breed?
2. Why didn't even a single dilute Labrador appear in the United Kingdom, ever, but they did appear in the United States long after the studbooks were closed?
3. Why do many American dilute "Labradors" (and their offspring) resemble Weimaraners?

DEFINITELY agree there would not be as much frenzy if we did not have social media and computers.

Silver labs are crap. If the so-called silver breeders would spend some of their ill-gotten money on Labrador books (just found a 1975 book by MRW used on Amazon) and she writes of chocolates being around since the beginning. Don't you think if silver was always there, they would have appeared somewhere else besides the USA and be documented in some of these old breed books by some of the most famous breeders in Labrador History???

While I agree that many of the silvers advertised on the web look like Weims, my trainer had one for awhile that had a coat like a Chessie. I don't know the pedigree or even if the dog had papers, as my trainer trains dogs just for hunting as well as for hunt tests. But that dog looked like it had Chessie genes.

Often wondered this as well, if as the silver breeders state the silver is purebred etc why after all these years still looks like a Weimaraner.

I'm reaching wayyyyy back into the memory bank here, but, does anyone else remember the early litter registrations which gave us a choice of listed colors. It was just black . yellow .chocolate... ands we were also allowed to write in a specific color. An I dreaming this up?

Yes, if I recall correctly they had an option for "other". I believe that ended right around the time of the AKC investigation of the silvers.

yep... that was it! Other.

There are still pedigrees from AKC research that have different colors listed. Yellow and white spots and I seem to recall a Liver Ticked, whatever that is. There is one silver that is still listed as silver and in the old old pedigrees I have found a brindle.
On one website that was recent I saw a dogs pedigree listed as Yellow and white. The owners must have insisted on this when they registered the dog because the picture was of a yellow Lab.
Someone from back in the sixties said that people listed the chocolates as liver, red, brown and the yellows in the different shades as well.
When you look at a research pedigree from the 1950's to 60's some of the colors are in bold lettering. Does anyone know why this is? I had thought t was because of the changing of the colors to chocolate, black and yellow but it seems to follow chocolate, yellow or pure for black lines that have had other colors pop up. I have often wondered as of late that this could indicate a mismatch in breeding.
For being the information age there are sure a lot of unanswered questions.

Yes is was "Other" and you then wrote it in, most of what you saw was black with white spot.