Purple [insert clever pun here]

[meeotch]

I'm just wondering if there is a particular reason purple seems (to me, at least, though I could be wrong with my limited knowledge and research) to be so underrepresented in the palette? I think a theme that was somewhat heavy on the purple would do well, just for the color factor.

[Draykov]

Last official word I heard was that purple was discontinued. Not sure who said it or when, but it's probably in the old forums somewhere. Didn't really make much sense to me to discontinue a color if no replacement "standard forever palette" shade had been chosen. Clearly, however, there' s been some sort of change in this stance given the parts we've been seeing in upcoming Indy/Toy Story sets.

[RocketClone]

Last time i saw a heavy purple set was a harry pottor one.

[Draykov]

Booyakasha!

[legodavee123]

Last official word I heard was that purple was discontinued.

I note that in the old forums link, it's referencing the color discussion from BrickFair 2008? I was there at BrickFair, but I don't recall them saying purple was discontinued-- I could be wrong, but the implication I got was that they were simply avoiding purple because it was a difficult color to match to start with, and their recent change in coloring procedures makes it even MORE difficult.

DaveE

[Draykov]

That seems a lot more likely/reasonable to me. But why would purple be any more/less difficult than any other non-primary color?

[meeotch]

This is pure speculation on my part, but I'm just going to apply what I remember from my color theory course to this. First off, what gives us different colors is the fact that they are different chemically. Whichever chemical it is that they use in purple may prevent it from mixing well. It might make it a little streaky. It may be harder for a darker value to be measured by a photoreceptive mechanical eye to verify that the color is true. Maybe different climates between the Mexican and European plants makes the color come out different. While I can see these reasons (and possibly more) being possible excuses for it not working, I'm still left with one thought: this is 2009! We put people in space! How can we not match two different lots of purple plastic by simply putting a constant amount x of purple pellets with a constant amount y of abs plastic for each batch and get standard Lego purple?

[legodavee123]

this is 2009! We put people in space! How can we not match two different lots of purple plastic by simply putting a constant amount x of purple pellets with a constant amount y of abs plastic for each batch and get standard Lego purple?

I think the idea is that yes, they could do it, if they wanted to shell out the money, but then it's not economical. I mean, purple matched for years prior to 2004, so they can clearly do it if they wanted to. But my guess is that if they did so, then you'd have to pay a whole lot more for those elements, and your casual Lego buyer won't understand why they had to suddenly pay twice the price for a purple set rather than, say, a blue one.

As for why purple is tricky, I would guess it's because it has a tendency to not be as chemically consistent throughout the molded bricks. I know with some dark green elements molded in 2007 (or thereabouts), the upper-left corner of one side of a rectangular brick would be a different shade of green than the lower-right corner, and so forth-- and that's within a single element! I expect that whatever the properties are of the purple dye, it's harder to deal with in their molding process than other colors-- possibly resulting in streaks, color blotches, inconsistent runs, etc.

DaveE

[Coret]

Ironically Purple Fireworks also cost more, which is why they aren't seen as much outside big firework displays. It just has to be something with purple. After all, back in the day Purple was a Royal color because it was so rare. I guess LEGO just wants to keep it that way.

[bluemoose]

Booyakasha!

Subsequent to that discussion, I was told that purple was being 'rested' for a few years, but wasn't officially 'discontinued'. There was no need to mold any more purple elements, as they weren't expecting to need it for new themes for a while, but there hadn't been a decision that it would never be used again.

Ian

[speaknspell]

purple isn't dead at all. its discouraged that purple ever be used in a large block like it was in the knight bus though. purple is just a very hard color to match, especially since we inject color at the mould. Purple paint is even hard to match, its just a difficult color to work with so we don't use it in large chunks anymore 'if possible'.

steve