Boba Fett minifigure (difference between "bluish grays" and "classic grays")

brian24

Can anyone explain the difference in these two figures? Is the difference subtle or obvious?

binaryeye

The difference is the color of grays used for the arms, legs, and torso. It should be obvious if you have a gray of the opposite type to compare against. Old gray will look more yellowish.

GIR3691

Here's a color guide. 

New greys (bley) are Medium Stone Grey and Dark Stone Grey. 

Old greys are Grey and Dark Grey.

Bricks after 2004-2005 will be the new gray, if that helps.

madforLEGO

Yeah, hold both up to a good light source. You will see one has a bit of a yellowish ting to its gray. That is old gray. The other has a slightly blueish tinge, that is new gray.

VorpalRyu

Keep in mind, older Space sets were Grey, while some of the older Castle sets were Medium Stone Grey. The Space set pieces will appear dirty when compared to the Castle pieces. Not knowing this when I grabbed all my old Lego from my parents place, drove me nuts when I first went to clean it all.

Aanchir

VorpalRyu said:

Keep in mind, older Space sets were Grey, while some of the older Castle sets were Medium Stone Grey. The Space set pieces will appear dirty when compared to the Castle pieces. Not knowing this when I grabbed all my old Lego from my parents place, drove me nuts when I first went to clean it all.

Actually, it's more like all sets released before 2003 were Grey, all sets after 2003 were Medium Stone Grey. Some sets released in 2003 came in both Grey and Medium Stone Grey variants, depending on when they were produced.

VorpalRyu

@Aanchir, strange... Because the stuff I had in storage dates from 1974-1994 & there is definitely the classic Grey of Space, but most of the Castle stuff I have matches the grey that all my new stuff is...

VorpalRyu

Odd! Just re-checked to confirm... Seems I have three variants of grey with my Castle stuff, three of the castle wall pieces are an almost match for the current grey in my Marvel/Ultra Agents sets, most of the others have a slight yellowish tint & the last four have just a shade less yellow to them, so they look different to all my Space stuff...

Pitfall69

Pretty much everything pre-2004 had light grey. The light grey changed color over time, but nothing would change it to "Bley". If I remember, there were 3 versions of the Imperial Star Destroyer; Light grey (which I have), a mixture of Light Grey and Medium Stone Grey(Bley) and all Medium Stone Grey.

VorpalRyu

@Pitfall69 that is interesting because three of the castle wall pieces & one of my 1×6 flats is pretty close match to my recent sets, but they were part of some old castle sets...

CCC

And are you sure they haven't been replaced or swapped with another set? Because modern greys were not used in 1980s and 90s sets.

Oldfan

VorpalRyu said:

@Aanchir, strange... Because the stuff I had in storage dates from 1974-1994 & there is definitely the classic Grey of Space, but most of the Castle stuff I have matches the grey that all my new stuff is...

It's also possible that some of your old grays are fading over time, but usually they don't fade to the color of med. stone gray...usually the old gray turns yellow instead.

VorpalRyu

CCC said:

And are you sure they haven't been replaced or swapped with another set? Because modern greys were not used in 1980s and 90s sets.

That could be a possibility, how I'm not sure, as I moved out in '93, as far as I know my little sister didn't like playing with our Lego, so it was supposedly boxed up & thrown into the loft around '02...

madforLEGO

I think @Istokg can answer this ultimately, but LEGO had two shades of gray before 2003. Dark gray and light gray. Before I think the 90's  (mid 90's) there was one gray: Light gray. However, there is some fine print I think as the LEGO Samsonite set gray parts sometimes came out darker gray than others even though they are considered just 'light gray', Mostly I have found with the 1x1 type 1 clip parts, but there was no 'stone' gray in the 70's 80's. I believe it was all 'yellowish' gray until 03 like others have said. What is annoying is having to explain to someone that unfortunately the 1x1 type 1 clips are in fact time period appropriate but for whatever reason are darker shade than most.

Pitfall69

^The Clips are annoying. I think the color had something to do with the molding process. The part has thin walls and maybe they had to use a different combination of ABS to achieve the part.

Pitfall69

The best thing about the "Bley" and Dark "Bley" is that it doesn't change color as bad as the old light and dark grey. I've had to toss so many parts because of color changing. Sometimes the parts change color within sealed boxes. I have tried the Hydrogen Peroxide treatment with varying success. It tends to work better on white parts than light grey.

Istokg

The Bley and Dark Bley haven't had as much time to turn color as the Gray and Dark Gray.

There was only 1 shade of gray from the first small plates of the early 1960s (Cellulose Acetate) until 2003.  But depending on storage conditions it could have quite a variance in color.  Same for blue parts.  The "yellowing" effect was different for each part.  But unlike some colors... the only way to tell Cellulose Acetate parts from ABS parts in gray was the warping (and things like pip locations).

Pitfall69

Here's a great picture showing the color differences between Light and Dark Grey vs. "Bley" and Dark "Bley".