Here's a view from the 1800's. From a book by Rawdon Lee, copyright 1894.
"There are some other rough-haired toy terriers, which are, however, of little account, because they have never been bred to any particular type. Occasionally wee things very like what a miniature Skye terrier would be are seen; and, again, some smart little dogs with cut ears, evidently a cross between a Yorkshire terrier and some other variety of small dog, are not at all uncommon, and were quite numerous before the dog show era commenced. Since then the general public will not look at anything other than what is considered to be of blue blood. At one of the early London shows separate classes were provided for Scotch terriers under 71b. weight and white in colour, fawns with the same limit, and blues likewise, each of the three attracting a fair entry, most of which were, however, what we should now call "cross-bred" broken-haired toy terriers."
Here's the link...
The Terriers. A History And Description Of The Modern Dogs Of Great Britain And Ireland | by Rawdon B. Lee
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Perhaps parti breeders will choose to disregard the above quote? Aside from historical references, the Yorkshire terrier standard has never allowed for anything other than a blue and tan dog.
So how could white appear in the Yorkshire? A likely hypothesis to me is that some of these "cross-bred broken-haired toy terriers" made it into the stud books as Yorkshires, due to outward appearance (carriers, possibly?). From then on, voila!, you have a Yorkshire Terrier according to pedigree. If that happened, it still doesn't trump the fact that the Yorkshire Terrier has always been a blue and tan dog, period. I can also think of more deliberate ways to get these dogs registered as Yorkshires and any breeder also knows that.
While there were no 'pedigreed' dogs before the advent of stud books, there were 'pure bred' dogs. It's very easy to see how dogs other than pure bred could have been assigned a breed class and a pedigreed line begun even if that dog was not 'pure bred'.....'pure bred' meaning, in other words, a dog that will breed true to the standard. Of course, then, as now, a breeder should not have continued a line that didn't meet the breed standard. Early breeders understood this and I'm not sure why there would be confusion now on such a basic idea of breeding pure bred dogs.
To put it a most basic way, here's a quote from Wikipedia. Now I know that Wiki is not the most authoritative source, but it does provide good basic info. And that's what is being talked about here....basic pure bred dog breeding in its simplest terms. Anyway, here's the quote....
[B]"In the world of animal breeding, to "breed true" means that specimens of an animal breed will breed true-to-type when mated like-to-like; that is, that the progeny of any two individuals in the same breed will show consistent, replicable and predictable characteristics. A puppy from two purebred dogs of the same breed, for example,
will exhibit the traits of its parents, and not the traits of all breeds in the subject breed's ancestry."
Well we will just have to agree to disagree. When I see someone selling a golden parti for $6000 I know they are cashing in on rare. Yes there is some fool that will pay it but it doesnt take away from the motivation of the breeder. I dont believe breeders should be breeding to supply the market anyway. I think they should be breeding to better the breed.