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Does it matter whether self blacks are silver or gold? Is there any difference?

If they are totally melanized then no difference in my opinion. I recall, in one of the old threads somebody wrote (rokimoto??)that in case of small leakages silver is less eyecatching than gold, that's why the blacks are more probably silver.

Thanks for that Wieslaw. I did wonder about the sheen and whether there was a difference in whether the sheen was green or blue (or even purple).
On the question of melanisation, in a mating of Silver Laced Wyandotte Cock x Dominique Hen would one expect full melanisation of the females because the Wyandotte has the Ml gene?

Just a test! One week on and no response. Perhaps it’s a case of “physician heal thyself”.
Seriously though I have observed that on British sites folk will answer any seemingly stupid beginners question with traditional British courtesy. Perhaps different norms apply elsewhere.
Vive la Brexit!

I have shared my opinion on the subject of sheen here:

http://www.the-coop.org/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=117353#Post117353


As far as the melanization is concerned, it may depend on whether the Dominique hen is on E or ER and whether she has additional melanizers.

It depends on the breed and how solid black lines were originally developed, as to what might be expected regarding underlying genotypes. Fred Jeffrey books have many old breeder tales. Most exhibition black lines were s+ based (Pekins, Orpingtons, Australorps, OEGB, etc). Breeders believed some sort of bronzing /red modifier enhanced green sheen, a balancing act.

But R. Okimoto's commercial Australorp line was S silver based, has green sheen. Personally, I believe the opposite, it's much easier to hide red leakage on black than silver, and any white on a black is considered a flaw. But a silver feather looks closer to blue, and brassiness a worse flaw in blues than white. But, the ideal world would be no leakage in the first place (although I know some use it in yellow legged black pullet breeding lines, the breeder males having some leakage).

Early Black Wyandotte lines were developed differently, some selected from overmelanised silver laced. These black lines occasionally threw silver laced.

Smyth has mentioned that Ml is very good in melanising both ER and e^b hens, but not as good with roosters, need additional melanisers.

Then there is Smyth's research line, e^b based blacks. It was supposed to have multiple melanisers, including Ml. Now you would think if both Pg-Ml present, the hens would have double lacing, not solid black. In a cross of this line to a non laced blue rooster, they got laced blues. So the e^b black line had Pg. Must have been the additional melanisers that gave sold black e^b hens.

When I crossed a non laced Blue Orpington bantam rooster with Jubilee Indian Game hen, I got all solid eumelanin offspring. Some generations on, I did get a E based cockerel with some red in hackles, which suggested that the melanisers between the two original breeds were different.

Crossing the same Blue Orpington rooster with a Light Sussex hen, all F1 had lemon / gold in neck hackles, only slightly melanised. Normally Ml/ml+ ER hens are heavily melanised.

Thank you both for sharing your insights and experiences. Clearly considerable, and inexplicable, variation in the results. It had never occurred to me that there may be different “recessive black” eumelanisers in different breeds.
Clearly part of the mystery and the joy of poultry breeding.