Light grey, or medium stone grey

Malnaborg

Hey all.

I have a great deal of problem with how i should label my Lego pieces in this color scale. So to not make any mistakes for labeling wrong, what do you others do ?

abel's bricks

part out in natural light, dark grey/light grey are obvious in good light. Once you get used to the differences it becomes easier to part colours out.

White Horse Bricks

I have a large medium stone plate, with a slightly yellowed and a new light gray plate stuck to it. I dump the grays onto this when sorting and check under a decent light.

Malnaborg

But if anything, will there be bad colors if i made everything light grey and then dark grey. And only those 2 colors ?

Calibrick

I have found looking at LG and MSG side-by-side can create an optical illusion of both looking the same if you have poor lighting (which I do in my data entry office). So I've found that holding them one at a time up to the light an looking for that brownish cast (light gray) or bluish cast (medium stone gray) really helps if I can't hop into another room with better light (such as my order pull/inventory room) right that minute. And when in doubt, I do compare them in better light to parts I KNOW are light gray or MSG.

Many sellers have a small board they've made of the color variations to check them against. It can be difficult in that some of the MSG pours have a slight brown tint to them, but just keep in mind the difference in the two colors are pretty markedly noticeable.

I will say, I suspect it wouldn't be optimal if you sold something as light gray that was MSG... if folks are parting out older sets and they order light gray, they need light gray - MSG won't fly for them and you'll likely have an unhappy customer.

There are some parts, such as technic pins and the smaller bushings, that I truly cannot tell due to size and the type of plastic LEGO uses. I actually place a comment on those that I sell as MSG that I think most are MSG, but some LG may have snuck their way in so customer, please be aware and obviously message me if the color is truly important (so I can make a special effort, ya know?). Then I only sell ones as LG that I am very, very confident truly are.

If a board or better light doesn't help - or you don't know what set the part came from (another way to check, e.g., you bought a bulk lot from someone) I would strongly consider a comment on any of your parts where the color may be in question, offering to "make it right" should a customer not receive the correct color from you (a good motivator to find ways to ensure correctness!). :-)

Just a few ideas!

Calibrick

BTW, Dark Gray and Dark Stone Gray are actually very easy to tell apart, side-by-side, even in poor lighting. There is sooo much brown in tint to the Dark Gray vs. the bluish tone to the DSG - even in my lousy office lighting, I can spot DG immediately. :-) Similar to LG, DG is in a lot of older sets, and when people purchase DG, it's usually deliberate for a part-out I suspect...

LG and DG also price higher in many parts, so it's important to try to get them right, even though it is definitely tougher to sort than say separating blue from red! :-)

Malnaborg

Okay, well thanks everyone. I will do my best :-)