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This is my longest-running project, a color chart. I'm using 3001 2x4 bricks as the ideal base sample. At the moment I'm trying to avoid variations within a single color (Pearl Gold, I'm looking at you), unless they are markedly different or a prominent site distinguishes the two. I started with the Bricklink color chart, and added colors from the Peeron chart, BL color notes, and other places around the internet.

9129579221_c1b0f5e197.jpg

Color Chart by eldeeem, on Flickr

It's NOT complete, and may never be. Here are the colors I know I'm missing, off the top of my head:

Red Pink (from Peeron's chart; Clikits only)

Light Pink (The only BL color I'm missing)

Transparent Bright Yellowish-Green (Similar to BL's Trans-Bright Green, pre-Atlantis)

Titanium Metallic (I have this, but forgot to add it before taking photos)

Pearl White (Clikits version)

Duplo Ochre Yellowish color

Please let me know if you know of any other colors, or if you want to trade some of the colors I'm missing!

Anyone? Anyone? Aanchir? ;P

Cheers!

-Ryan H.

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Very neat. I'd hazard a guess that Red Pink is the color Flamingo Pink, which Bricklink misidentifies as Bright Pink.

The official name for the color you identified as Trans-Salmon is Transparent Fluorescent Red. Good that you were able to recognize it as a unique color from Trans-Dark Pink (Tr. Medium Reddish Violet)!

The color that matches the flute from the Harry Potter sets is officially called 128 Dark Nougat, and it's the same color as Vernon Dursley's hair from the 2002 Escape from Privet Drive set. Bricklink misidentifies both as Earth Orange (Light Orange Brown), if I'm not mistaken. Peeron knows to identify it as a separate color (DkNougat), but I can't verify with absolute certainty that everything they list in that color is actually that color, and they don't list the flute or those technic elements under that name.

The rust elements you have between classic red (Bright Red) and Fabuland Red are officially just classic red. The variation is because of the material as far as I can tell, and they share this color with some Technic gears from the Slizer/Throwbots sets. It still fits on your chart since you ARE listing some subtle and not-so-subtle variant colors.

There's one obscure color I discovered semi-recently exists in regular LEGO. It's called Tr. Deep Blue, and I previously thought it was only used in LEGO Watches (like some other colors, "Army Green" and "Gun Metallic", whose names are surprisingly warlike for when they were introduced). But I recently discovered by trawling through element IDs from 2002 in the LEGO Customer Service database that the eye of 8009 is this color.

In metallic colors, you're missing a few which are not too hard to identify. 189 Reddish-Gold is usually identified as Pearl Gold or Copper (not even close) on Bricklink, but in fact it's a distinct color. It was used in Duplo and Knights' Kingdom II. The brighter gold swords in the KK2 playsets, and Sir Danju and King Matthias's armor in the 2005 playsets, are this color. So are "copper" BIONICLE Krana masks and Kraata slugs from 2003. It looks almost the same as Pearl Gold (Warm Gold) but it's a little more orange.

I can't tell if you have Cool Silver or not. It was a very briefly-used silver color from 2006. It was apparently SUPPOSED to replace the classic 131 Silver that had been used up to that point, but it evidently wasn't very good as 131 Silver came back the very next year. BIONICLE and Vikings sets tended to use this color during that time. If you have a silver BIONICLE or Vikings part from 2006 that is lighter than your typical Pearl Light Gray part, then that's probably what it is.

146 Metallic Sand Violet is a pearl purple color, but I have never seen it used except as a misprint variant of the lid to 8794. You probably wouldn't be able to fit that lid on this chart anyway. Too big. :tongue:

200 Lemon Metallic is basically the same color as your Metallic Green parts, but it's a pearl color instead. Bricklink treats it as the same thing as Metallic Green, but the difference is obvious in the case of rubber parts like BIONICLE Krana and Kraata.

In non-metallic colors, there's a transparent orange color from Clikits which Bricklink usually calls either Trans-Neon Orange or Trans-Bright Orange. It's neither. It's a separate color called 231 Tr. Flame Yellowish Orange (in other words, the transparent equivalent of Bright Light Orange). It should be somewhat lighter/yellower than Tr. Bright Orange and nowhere near the same color as Tr. Neon Orange, but not being a Clikits expert I can't verify exactly which sets had this and which had one of the more familiar orange colors.

Similarly, as far as I can tell, most transparent yellow parts in Clikits are a unique color called 234 Tr. Fire Yellow. But I can't verify that ALL of them are because I have never owned a Clikits set to make comparisons.

There are at least a couple different colors Bricklink calls Salmon. I know some Duplo sets around 2003 used one called 123 Bright Reddish Orange. Earlier Salmon parts were more often 101 Medium Red.

Anyway, that's all the omissions I can think of at the moment. Great collection!

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I got a weird-blue brick that I posted there some time ago <snip>

That is odd! From the photo I'd say it looks closest to Dark Azure; that's a very rare non-production color for that part, though I have seen it before. Where/when did you get it? The darker blue is interesting, too :)

Very neat. I'd hazard a guess that Red Pink is the color Flamingo Pink, which Bricklink misidentifies as Bright Pink.

That sounds right, though I don't remember where I heard that name...

The official name for the color you identified as Trans-Salmon is Transparent Fluorescent Red. Good that you were able to recognize it as a unique color from Trans-Dark Pink (Tr. Medium Reddish Violet)!

I just took the Peeron name for that one. Do you know if that color was ever used for anything else?

The color that matches the flute from the Harry Potter sets is officially called 128 Dark Nougat, and it's the same color as Vernon Dursley's hair from the 2002 Escape from Privet Drive set. Bricklink misidentifies both as Earth Orange (Light Orange Brown), if I'm not mistaken. Peeron knows to identify it as a separate color (DkNougat), but I can't verify with absolute certainty that everything they list in that color is actually that color, and they don't list the flute or those technic elements under that name.

Ah, thanks for the info! I bought the Technic 1x4 bricks from Magicbricks; they were labeled as "Fabuland Brown" there, though that's obviously not the case.

The rust elements you have between classic red (Bright Red) and Fabuland Red are officially just classic red. The variation is because of the material as far as I can tell, and they share this color with some Technic gears from the Slizer/Throwbots sets. It still fits on your chart since you ARE listing some subtle and not-so-subtle variant colors.

I agree, it (and the gears) look like a plastics issue rather than a technically separate color. Is there an "actual" Rust color? This maybe?

There's one obscure color I discovered semi-recently exists in regular LEGO. It's called Tr. Deep Blue, and I previously thought it was only used in LEGO Watches (like some other colors, "Army Green" and "Gun Metallic", whose names are surprisingly warlike for when they were introduced). But I recently discovered by trawling through element IDs from 2002 in the LEGO Customer Service database that the eye of 8009 is this color.

That's good to know! I'll have to hunt down that eye... do you know which watch sets had those unique colors?

In metallic colors, you're missing a few which are not too hard to identify. 189 Reddish-Gold is usually identified as Pearl Gold or Copper (not even close) on Bricklink, but in fact it's a distinct color. It was used in Duplo and Knights' Kingdom II. The brighter gold swords in the KK2 playsets, and Sir Danju and King Matthias's armor in the 2005 playsets, are this color. So are "copper" BIONICLE Krana masks and Kraata slugs from 2003. It looks almost the same as Pearl Gold (Warm Gold) but it's a little more orange.

Of course! I even have several parts in that color. That's going on the chart now :D

I can't tell if you have Cool Silver or not. It was a very briefly-used silver color from 2006. It was apparently SUPPOSED to replace the classic 131 Silver that had been used up to that point, but it evidently wasn't very good as 131 Silver came back the very next year. BIONICLE and Vikings sets tended to use this color during that time. If you have a silver BIONICLE or Vikings part from 2006 that is lighter than your typical Pearl Light Gray part, then that's probably what it is.

I don't think I have that on the chart; I'll have to look at my collection.

I used a KKII sword for Flat Silver (?); is that correct?

146 Metallic Sand Violet is a pearl purple color, but I have never seen it used except as a misprint variant of the lid to 8794. You probably wouldn't be able to fit that lid on this chart anyway. Too big. :tongue:

Still, good to know! I'll look for that one anyway :)

200 Lemon Metallic is basically the same color as your Metallic Green parts, but it's a pearl color instead. Bricklink treats it as the same thing as Metallic Green, but the difference is obvious in the case of rubber parts like BIONICLE Krana and Kraata.

I'll look for that; I'm pretty sure I know what it looks like. Are there any non-rubber Lemon Metallic parts?

In non-metallic colors, there's a transparent orange color from Clikits which Bricklink usually calls either Trans-Neon Orange or Trans-Bright Orange. It's neither. It's a separate color called 231 Tr. Flame Yellowish Orange (in other words, the transparent equivalent of Bright Light Orange). It should be somewhat lighter/yellower than Tr. Bright Orange and nowhere near the same color as Tr. Neon Orange, but not being a Clikits expert I can't verify exactly which sets had this and which had one of the more familiar orange colors.

Similarly, as far as I can tell, most transparent yellow parts in Clikits are a unique color called 234 Tr. Fire Yellow. But I can't verify that ALL of them are because I have never owned a Clikits set to make comparisons.

I think I have parts in both of those Clikits colors. Are the transparent yellow Clikits parts really different from the yellow Bionicle eye stalks? They look identical to me.

There are at least a couple different colors Bricklink calls Salmon. I know some Duplo sets around 2003 used one called 123 Bright Reddish Orange. Earlier Salmon parts were more often 101 Medium Red.

I know Light Salmon and Salmon (BL names); those are the 1x4 tiles and the vase base thing next to it. What parts came in the other salmons?

And I saw that Maersk Blue was in a non-licensed Duplo set; I have one of those "Maersk" Duplo parts, and it looks markedly different from regular Maersk, but that might just be yellowing. Do you know anything about this color?

Thanks so much, Aanchir! It really helps to have someone like you to reconcile all of the different naming systems, and I greatly appreciate the time it must take you. How do you find all the official Lego color names, and what they line up with?

Cheers!

-Ryan

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That sounds right, though I don't remember where I heard that name...

Brickset's parts browser (which is sourced from the LEGO Customer Service replacement parts database) has it listed, but only one part is listed in that color since the replacement parts database only includes parts for which pics are on cache.LEGO.com. And the thumbnail shows as gray, so you wouldn't even be able to recognize it as pink if not for the name and the set it comes in!

I just took the Peeron name for that one. Do you know if that color was ever used for anything else?

Not to my knowledge. There were a lot of colors being used very sparsely in the early 2000s, such as the "flip/flop" colors used for BIONICLE masks or various transparent fluorescent colors. Since then there has been a concerted effort to reduce infrequently-used colors, and for the past several years the number of colors still on the LEGO color palette hovers around 50 or 60 if I'm not mistaken.

It's entirely possible there are Transparent Fluorescent Red parts I'm not aware of, but they'd probably have to be from 2001-2003 sets. I've found no indication that the color was on the palette before 2001, nor any indication that it was on the palette after 2003.

Ah, thanks for the info! I bought the Technic 1x4 bricks from Magicbricks; they were labeled as "Fabuland Brown" there, though that's obviously not the case.

Fabuland Brown and Earth Orange seem to do double-duty as the go-to color names for brown colors people don't recognize. :tongue:

I agree, it (and the gears) look like a plastics issue rather than a technically separate color. Is there an "actual" Rust color? This maybe?

There's an actual rust color, yes (216 Rust) but I can't verify whether those old Duplo animals are that color. And believe me, I've tried. Chances are they are not, since an ID number as big as 216 seems to suggest a color that wasn't introduced until sometime in the last decade. And yet they're certainly not Bright Red like so many other "rust" parts. Finding info on colors from that long ago is hard because it was long before TLG introduced their replacement parts database or started putting inventories in instruction booklets.

That's good to know! I'll have to hunt down that eye... do you know which watch sets had those unique colors?

They were in the early naughts, I know that much from the Element IDs for the watch links (which appear in sequence with other 2000-2001 parts). I'm guessing Army Green ones were in the X-Tracker watch, but that's just a hunch. Likewise, I think Transparent Deep Blue watch links came in the Star Pilot watch. Gun Metallic is harder. This one seems to have something fitting that description.

As far as I can tell, the color IDs for these colors are 144 Army Green, 168 Gun Metallic (of the three, this is the one I know for absolute certain, since it's on the Isodomos LEGO color list), and 156 Transparent Deep Blue. The Isodomos link has thumbnails of 2x2 tiles in those colors, from official LEGO color charts from that era.

I don't think I have that on the chart; I'll have to look at my collection.

I used a KKII sword for Flat Silver (?); is that correct?

Flat Silver is a bit of a funny color. Before 2010, when 315 Silver Metallic was introduced, "Flat Silver" parts were officially the same color as Pearl Light Gray parts — 131 Silver. Its darker appearance was usually just due to differences in the material or surface finish of particular molds. The silver KK2 swords are probably as good an example as ever.

I'll look for that; I'm pretty sure I know what it looks like. Are there any non-rubber Lemon Metallic parts?

Hard to say. I haven't owned any others of the parts Bricklink calls Metallic Green, so I don't know which sets have a metallic surface finish and which actually use metallic-colored plastic granulate (which would be the defining factor for Lemon Metallic).

I think I have parts in both of those Clikits colors. Are the transparent yellow Clikits parts really different from the yellow Bionicle eye stalks? They look identical to me.

I honestly don't remember if Transparent Fluorescent Yellow (the color of those BIONICLE eye stalks) was used in Clikits. If not, then chances are those are Tr. Fire Yellow. Clikits is one of the areas where I don't have much firsthand experience. I know which colors EXIST primarily from LDD and from pictures I've seen of 2006 color palettes used by LEGO designers. And occasionally I find specific examples of parts in those colors, though I still sometimes have a hard time knowing which of these colors were used in which Clikits sets.

I know Light Salmon and Salmon (BL names); those are the 1x4 tiles and the vase base thing next to it. What parts came in the other salmons?

And I saw that Maersk Blue was in a non-licensed Duplo set; I have one of those "Maersk" Duplo parts, and it looks markedly different from regular Maersk, but that might just be yellowing. Do you know anything about this color?

The other salmons (at least, the ones I've seen) are usually also identified as Salmon on Bricklink. 2x2 Duplo bricks in Salmon from 2003 sets are Bright Reddish Orange if I'm not mistaken, and earlier Scala and Belville parts in Salmon are usually Medium Red (which I'd say is the most common variant). But I can't recall if I've found any other salmon colors, or what those might have been used for.

As for Maersk Blue, the official ID is 11 Pastel Blue. Duplo parts Bricklink calls Maersk Blue are from an irritating era of early 90s Duplo that I've had an infuriatingly difficult time identifying colors from, same as that rust-colored cow. I'm afraid I don't have an answer.

Thanks so much, Aanchir! It really helps to have someone like you to reconcile all of the different naming systems, and I greatly appreciate the time it must take you. How do you find all the official Lego color names, and what they line up with?

I started studying the color palette several years back, as an offshoot of my interest in BIONICLE. I did a lot of BIONICLE art and the few times I colored it I wanted my colors to be as exact as possible. Being a BIONICLE fan already gave me a head start on knowing a lot of names for obscure metallic colors from the early 2000s because the official Kraata identification chart on the BIONICLE site used the official color names. I found knowing as many color names as possible was useful in discussions and I started putting together color charts on Microsoft Excel. The Peeron Color Chart and Isodomos LEGO color chart (which I linked above) were a godsend for me.

Knowledge of LEGO colors became even more useful once LEGO Universe mode of LDD was introduced and a lot of these obscure colors were usable by a large number of people for the very first time. I started helping Superkalle out with the LDD Manager color chart in the Digital Tools subforum here on Eurobricks. And I eventually discovered the LEGO Customer Service database, which gave me a HUGE amount of material to study.

Here's a sort-of secret about the LEGO Customer Service replacement parts database: just because a part doesn't appear in any inventories doesn't mean it's not in the database. Here's an example of an item in the database that doesn't appear in the inventories that are accessible from the customer service site itself (It's Ms. Stevens' torso from 41005 Heartlake High, if you're wondering). The template for this URL has changed a few times as they've revamped the Customer Service interface, but the principle of how you use it is the same: just replace the seven-digit Element ID from the URL with any other Element ID to see the name, Design ID, and color for that element.

And the way I used this also stemmed from my interest in BIONICLE. I found some 2001 BIONICLE element IDs, plugged them into the template, and started increasing or decreasing them, one digit at a time. It's tedious, time-consuming, and probably not a very good use of my time. But occasionally you learn something! I've found a large number of 2001 BIONICLE parts that never appeared in sets, such as masks and other parts in colors they never appeared in — probably from prototypes or sketch models for the various BIONICLE video games. And occasionally I find enough information to verify what the actual name of the color an obscure, misidentified Bricklink item is. (Random tangent: look at any instruction booklet, sticker sheet, or leaflet that appears in a LEGO set and you'll probably see a seven-digit number printed somewhere on it — those are Element IDs too!)

So yeah, it's really tedious, inefficient work. There are a lot of Element IDs that don't belong to any items in the database (all the fields will be blank for those). But if you ever have the patience, try starting with a part that you know debuted in a set from the year and theme you want to know about and plowing through a hundred or so Element IDs. Whether it's worth it or not depends on how interested you are, how lucky you are, and what you're hoping to learn! :classic:

EDIT: Here's the list of BIONICLE elements I collected on Microsoft Excel[/url], so you can get an idea of how many hours of my life I've wasted on this! :laugh:

Edited by Aanchir

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That is odd! From the photo I'd say it looks closest to Dark Azure; that's a very rare non-production color for that part, though I have seen it before. Where/when did you get it? The darker blue is interesting, too :)

As I posted on the other topic, it might come from a set of extra random parts as they were making a few years ago:

I think it is new (at least it looks like new).

Some time ago I bought sets containing "random" bricks, http://www.brickset....ail/?Set=4518-1 + another I think

There were in these many unusual colors, cf http://www.peeron.co...-1?withpics=yes

I thought maybe I got that part from a set like that.

But it is maybe just a miscolored blue brick from one of the several basic bricks set that I got.

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