I was very fortunate to speak via email with cookie that owns
jonanyorkies@cox.net, in my opinion she has one of the best sites filled with several articles on the breed, coloring, pegmentation and care. I e-mailed her regarding how to tell if a puppy will have the true silky coat or the somewhat thicker coat also known as either a soft coat (part silk) or the more difficult to maintain the wooly coat and least desireable and what age can a person tell what they have. Another question, when will a coat start breaking to its true color?
from Cookie:
"Here's an article written by Joan Gordon. She's called the mother of the Yorkies in this country. This is an excerpt from her book. I think you'll learn a lot about color and pigmentation from this."
http://dandugmore.netfirms.com/color.html
"I'm the webmaster for the YTCA site and I just put up a new page called "The Life of a Yorkie". Check this out and you'll see how many different coats there are for Yorkies. All these pictures came from YTCA members and most are show dogs."
http://ytca.org/pictures.html
On this page, look at the 3 week olds. There's 2 pictures from 2 different people. The first picture I would say the pups will have a modified silk coat. The second picture the pups are pure silk.
Cookie