Oriental breeders did with the silvers, as firstly they had access to several silver lines from several different roots so could indeed combine and select without fearing for too much inbreeding.  And secondly the mentality was there to act with the gene and carefully working with it, instead of just "let it be around".  I know this last real breeding mentality has not been there in the Manx breed with regards to the silver colors, apart from a few dedicated people who did indeed work with the silver properly, like Jude and Jerry Rancier (Notale Manx) in the beginning of the eighties.  I know there are a few remnants left from the old day silver lies in the Manx breed in the USA (and by this I do NOT mean the lines going back to the silvertabby American SH sire who I heard mated in real a certain Manx female instead of the browntabby Manx sire that is present on the official pedigrees found in several currant lines still....).  But I am a bit annoyed that no breeder seems to value what they have still present in some of their breeding lines, let alone that they think about how they could use this lovely gene to their advantage.  I have seen several pedigrees where breeders just let the silver gene die out by keeping on the non-silver kitten from a silver parent, maybe happy to be finally rid to that "difficult" gene that gave so many "difficult to determine and register kittens" .....Several lines I know are registered incorrectly as well (black instead of blacksmoke in case of several low grad smokes)  and several owners of those lines that do not realize that they could achieve much more IF they combined things properly and bred the silvergene to its full potential, keeping in mind the genetic rules to play by, which I have tried to describe above.  I know silver is often hard to determine, but I feel breeders should register properly and if in doubt apply for the silver version as not to possible present unwanted surprises to later generations of breeders who suddenly get a silver kitten that they cannot register properly any more, as both parents are registered as non-silver.  And also I feel that silver should not get into lines secretly as it is a factor that some people really do not fancy in their personal tastes and would not want in their breeding lines at all (also it gives another challenge while already it is a lot of work to breed a good Manx in all other aspects!)  I remember a lovely redtabby Manx in the USA who turned out to inherit as the redsilvertabby ("cameo-tabby") her really was.  This however an easy mistake, also often made here by Main Coon and Norwegian Forest Cats breeders working with red combined with the inhibitor gene, as the white ground color of a red-tabby does not differ much from the off-white ground color of a redsilvertabby - determining kittens by bright daylight is here a good help.  I hope from him many silver children and grandchildren are still around and available to those who would like to go in for the challenge to breed really good silver in Manx.  It would be a pity if a natural factor belonging to the breed (I have seen some silvers in Man myself, amongst which a very funny colored silvertortierabby with a lot of white) would be lost or only perpetuated in a non-committed way by breeders who do not value what they have in their cat's legacies and just tolerate it as long as it is there, resulting in cats that are scarcely visible low-grade smokes, being wrongly registered as blacks often, or wrongly colored silvertabbies with just a faded ground color and brownish tinged parts in their silver hair roots.  Such cats, if shown, do the lovely silver colors no good and will only give those that do not fancy the factor, grounds for even more disliking it, instead of convincing them that it can be a nice addition to the color palette of the breed in its own right.  The Oriental breeders did NOT show their first generations out of for example a low grade smoke and a browntabby yet.  It only would harm their end goal.  Instead they upgraded the needed polygenes by selective breeding a real good silver ground-color with a clear well defined dark pattern lying on it.  I hope that my article will encourage those that do still have some "hidden" silver left in their lines to act and try to improve it towards something good solid silver in any color or pattern combination possible, so the wonderful "I" gene will not whither away but have its own place in the Manx breed which it deserves.  Once I would love to breed an odd-eyed smoke calico Manx (to name a funny color)- but only when I knew the silver Manx I would need for a mating would be a decent silver guy with enough polygenes to ensure a decent silver color in his kittens and not get a muddy wrongly colored result in neither-no-kittens who are silver genetically, but with that all is said of them.  To quote Barbara St. Georges who once in an article about the Manx standard described her smoke Gr.C. Briar-Brae Mesa, saying: "[the silver should be] the icing on the cake."  And an icing is the perfect finishing touch but definitely not some randomly distributed melting white cream dripping from the cake!

NOTE: Barbara St Georges says: "It was Dave Bandy- a long time judge- who said it was icing on the cake-not me- He was making Mesa BEST in show back in the 70's-when he said--" Having a white undercoat such as this on a seeming black cat is like iceing on a cake ...... As you know the standard for smoke does call for white--certainly not silver"-    ooops, we stand corrected!