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Kwakers here, back from our busy Summer, but still way behind on my 6 year roof plan. It was pointed out to me only recently by an American collector that these tipper colors are commonly associated with light BROWN by Brits, while we Yanks have always called these same colors shades of TAN. This may come from societal upbringing as youngsters while playing with Crayons and coloring. Tan here in America has always been a light flesh tone, while Brown has always varied from a light chocolate color at it's lightest, darkening from there.
Thanks for your color pictures posted here George, I must now look closer at our metal wheel 40A Tippers for one like your darker Dump body. The true color variations described by both Harold and Bob in their U.S. published AIM and NAMC Guides are living records of what we early U.S. collectors found new and boxed in our stores. The last variation GPW Dumps we found in our stores had VERY dark Tan bodies, but were found everywhere in quantities that make them very common to find even today. Our past discussions here on the Forum over the years have revealed that Mike Stannard missed many of these Lesney color variances when he published his Guide in 1985. His main concern and focus seemed to have been in tracking all major and minor factory casting changes in detail through each model's life, not in talking with then-living U.K. veteran collectors about what color differences they had held since brand new in their older collections.
Thanks Hugh (AND George) for both your time and work in these pages, it seems that the Summer has been a "Sleepy" time for regular wheel collectors in briefly reviewing the response to Posts here under this important heading. For that reason, I just had to take the time to answer this Post before heading off to bed. Cheers! Kwakers

Goodness me! We have been doubly blessed in recent days by the welcome return of Mike and now Kwakers! Nice to see you back on board Dick, I'm looking forward to more of your eloquent and informed rambles!

Cheers,
Gavin

Welcome back, Dick! Your input on the many RW topics has been sorely missed.

First. I must say that I find you people's attention to minor details to be worrisome. But it keeps you off the streets, so that's a positive. Secondly, may I suggest that rather than tan, dark tan, light brown etc, that you use standardized colors? RGB, Pantone, RAL, BS381c, BS4800, Federal Standard, there are many choices. Indeed, you will probably have to lean on several charts as none cover every shade. Pantone may be the most complete but their color guides are frightfully expensive.

Here's a page http://encycolorpedia.com/ffd648 that allows you to enter a hexidecimal number and spits out dozens of names and similar shades from a plethora of paint companies and color naming schemes. You could print out a page and compare it to your models and define a specific colr to that variation. As it's digital, it will look different on every monitor, but the difference between one variation and another variation will be the same on that monitor. There are numerous sites that allow you to play with colors and make comparisons. I use this one to try and find automotive paint that matches the model that I'm restoring. It's not very good at that task though, as it doesn't tell me the year the color was used. In the example I've quoted, the most similar shade of Chrysler paint is Yellow. Gee thanks, that helps a lot.

Keeping some of us off the streets can only be a good thing. its the attention to minor details that can make this a fascinating hobby for the completis (is that spelt propa) to be honest most of it goes way over my head. Thats why I enjoy these threads so much some of it sticks and I can aquire a htf more by luck than knowledge
Regards using digital paint codes I think this would be more confusing as light tan, dark tan, brown etc are an easy way to describe a colour without having to look up colour charts
Meeeow

Bernie wrote:Here's a page http://encycolorpedia.com/ffd648 that allows you to enter a hexidecimal number and spits out dozens of names and similar shades from a plethora of paint companies and color naming schemes. You could print out a page and compare it to your models and define a specific colr to that variation. As it's digital, it will look different on every monitor, but the difference between one variation and another variation will be the same on that monitor. There are numerous sites that allow you to play with colors and make comparisons. I use this one to try and find automotive paint that matches the model that I'm restoring. It's not very good at that task though, as it doesn't tell me the year the color was used. In the example I've quoted, the most similar shade of Chrysler paint is Yellow. Gee thanks, that helps a lot.

We actually went down precisely this path on the old Lefora Forum when discussing the various colours of the 42b Studebaker Lark. Although it seemed like the obvious solution, after an awful lot of toing and froing, we came to the conclusion that there were simply too many variables (mainly the way colours are rendered on a monitor, but also people’s own colour perception).
Having everyone work with an agreed set of colour swatches would be the ideal solution I suppose, but not everyone can afford such luxuries, plus there is the issue of finding a set which is both available and identical Worldwide.

Welcome back to the forum Dick. Please don't make the break so long next time, it gets worrying for a lot of us here, thinking you may have dropped Matchbox and moved onto collecting Star Wars...

Ghosty.

There's probably an 'App' for our smart phones that tells us what colours our models are once we have taken a picture of it...

GHOSTHUNTER.

GHOSTHUNTER wrote:There's probably an 'App' for our smart phones that tells us what colours our models are once we have taken a picture of it...

GHOSTHUNTER.

How did an old fossil know that ...aaahh must be Marmaduke's nephew Marmalade there is one called " Color Capture & Identifier " on android

GHOSTHUNTER wrote:...smart phones...

Well, that's Dick and me stuffed straight away!