bought a yoke

[Rod44]

Was at an auction on Monday and there was an ox yoke on it. Don’t have any cattle but couldn’t resist it. It is in very, very good shape. Very little use and no rot or dry rot anywhere. I put linseed oil on it when I got home. Two questions:

1. What do you think something like this is worth?

2. What are the extra set of holes for in the middle of the bows?

[Howie]

I THINK I have finally figured it out. It is a nice looking yoke but unuseable.It was made to use the middle and outside holes for the bow holes.Then they drilled the wider holes. Now the neck seat is off center. It is a nice wall hanger.:):)

[Rod]

I have seen an two old yokes that were drilled like that. I though perhaps the builder did it on purpose so the yoke could be used with two diffrent sized bows as the oxen got bigger. By doing a number of yokes that way with diffrent spacing and switching back and forth it would be possible to cut down the number of yokes that needed to be built. They would not fit as well as a yoke made for each size individually but likely in days past practical folks were not as careful as we might be today about such things.

[Author]

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