Identifying Lego colors in second-hand lots?

achillespdx

So I've just recently decided that it'd be fun to have a 2x4 brick (or 2x2 brick) of EVERY Lego color ever produced, and I snagged a small stack of unique colors at my local second-hand Lego store.

Here's my question though: How do I know which colors I just bought? I mean, red, yellow, blue, and even the different grays are easy enough for me to pick out, but how do I know what the light-blue is that I picked up, or the tan-ish color that I got, without having some reference piece to match it against?

Any suggestions?

andhe

I've seen a few pictures on Flickr of someone who has done this (including a collection of production errors, swirly coloured bricks). So you could look for that, or try bricklink, but there colour matching can be a bit off. Or there was an official colour chart linked somewhere in this forum, but the official colours didn't seem that accurate (eg calling tan yellow) but at least bricklink would give you a list of what you're aiming for.

jwsmart

This thread will be a good start: http://www.bricksetforum.com/discussion/672/2011-colour-chart-from-lego#Item_11

It has the official LEGO color palette (for 2011 - so it might not help with the older stuff) and links to @siderdd's excellent comparison of the different blue bricks.

Another good method is to go on bricklink and find uncommon pieces, and see what colors they were available in. That will at least let you eliminate some color possibilities.

Matthew

Try these: http://www.peeron.com/inv/colors
http://www.peeron.com/cgi-bin/invcgis/colorguide.cgi