dave2-8-0 Wrote:
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> Interesting color chart...
>
>
> A couple of observations: Assuming these paint
> chips are what the D&RG had for a color pallet in
> C. 1915.
>
> Your thoughts welcomed.
>
> Dave
The color chart is the Masury catalogue chips from 1887. The catalogue is published on the PacificNG site on their paint and color page. Masury is said to have been a major supplier of paints to the RRs and were in business from the 1850s to (looks like) around the late 1990s or early 2000s when they were bought by Valspar (now owned by Sherwin Williams), so the colors would definitely have been available anytime from birth through the 'prime' years of D&RG.
I'm no expert on colors but more recently I've been paying more attention to these RR color debates. From what I've gleened from period publications, catalogues, etc. what we call yellow today is what was more commonly known (in industry at least, maybe not general public) as
light yellow and the darker shades as chrome or chrome yellow. The same sort of thing goes for red. What we consider reds today were the various shades of Vermillion and the reds were all way at the brown end of the scale and called Tuscan, Lakes, and Carmines. For this reason I would think the RR management, when referring to yellow, would be referring to the chromes, but then who knows how knowledgeable all management was on color names. Another potentially confusing item - when you start looking at wagon paints like Valentine & Company the names shift more toward the lighter shades for the reds, although they still run all the way toward the dark red/maroon shades. Darker yellows are still called chromes.
As for the (hopefully still) existing numbers on that tender, the organic pigments really can fade a lot, so hopefully there's enough thickness to get an accurate sample. A faded Lemon Chrome might easily get to look like French Chrome on the surface after just a short time. And that opens another can of worms - do we pick a modern paint in a color that looks like the faded paint or the original shade? Given that most of these old engines are far cleaner and 'new looking' than they would have been in regular service, my thought would be to use the original fresh shade. Faded just wouldn't look right to me on something as shiny as 168 is today (and she's a very handsome lady thanks to the C&TS crew, no matter the comments on the current lettering).
Hopefully Jeff Taylor will get a chance to do some layer sanding on 191/223's tender and find a definitive answer when the time comes. In the meantime, can you post the contrast/tone adjusted photo so we can see?