Help with colours

Neiljones

Can anyone help with the middle colour. As far as I can see it looks like the colour goes throughout the brick. Which is why I have photographed both sides. At first I thought it was discoloured but that does not seem to be the case. The one on the left I classed as dark blue and the one on the right I classed as blue. As always, your help is much appreciated.

Hoddie

It may be brittle blue, hard to tell from a pic. But there was a time when blue (and a few other colours) had issues, and turned brittle with age, snapping or breaking into pieces with just a little pressure.

Neiljones

@Hoddie thanks for the information have tried to break it but it still holds strong. They all have the number 44327on them. The dark blue as 05/15 the blue has 05/05 and the one in the middle has 06/02. Which I believe is the month and the year that they were made.

Jay37

Middle one just looks like an older, slightly discolored blue - I think over time something in the mix renders it more of a 'petrol blue' which may explain why the color difference is uniform and not just on one side (which would suggest sunlight damage). I have seen this before and I think not just with blue - I'm convinced Lime does the same thing as I have some of those which look a little more yellow, again throughout the whole part.

The numbers inside are not dates of production, they are more likely batch numbers. Modern parts will have ©2012, for example, to indicate when it was made.

Neiljones

Thanks Jay37 for the information.

Vosblokjes

The 05-15, 05-05 and 06-02 are the mold number and the position inside the mold of the piece.
This way LEGO can quickly see which mold/position has an issue when doing quality control.

And yes it looks like discolored blue
Or it is a part that was molded at the moment LEGO was switching between Blue and Dark Blue and both got mixed into 1 color (but that is really small chance)

Neiljones

@BasKrie thanks for the information.