my icon is TOTALLY APPROPRIATE because asparagus is an awesome crayon! But it misses mulberry!

[slammerkinbabe]

Why, oh, why, is there no venue in which I can buy retired shades of Crayola crayons?

I take my coloring very seriously. I don't post about it on here very often, which is shocking given that I blog to the point of exhaustion about every single other thing that I care about at all. But, yes, I color and it is very serious business to me. I search the Internet regularly for new and exciting coloring pages; and I will only color with crayons, because there are many people in this world who color with art supplies designed for serious artists, and all those people who color with those art supplies are better than me, but I am QUEEN of the crayons, man. Nobody is better at crayon-coloring technique than me. I can blend and overlay and just generally color the shit out of whatever coloring page you give me, as long as I've got my box of crayons by my side.

But they've got to be Crayola crayons. I will not color with anything else. This is actually an artistic preference, and I am not kidding about that: whatever formula they use in creating their crayon wax is the only one that I find suitable for optimal blending. If you give me a box of RoseArt crayons, I will scowl at it, and then use them strictly for doodling and grocery-list-making, because you just can't color properly with those. Thus it is that whenever Crayola comes out with a new, bigger 'n' better box of crayons*, I'm the first one in line to get it. And then, of course, my old box inevitably gets lost at some point, or someone asks to borrow it (CRAYONS ARE COOL, MAN, EVERYBODY WANTS MY CRAYONS) and never returns it.

I always assumed, you know, that there were other people out there who were as ardent fans of coloring in general and Crayola crayons in particular as I. I knew that Crayola had a habit of retiring certain crayons and having people vote in new colors, but I always thought that it was okay, because there were *sure* to be people selling collections of retired Crayolas on eBay. I figured there would be, like, Crayola dealers, people who would buy up a box of old crayons when they heard certain colors were to be retired, and then sell them at a profit down the line. I'm serious. I really thought this.

I was wrong.

eBay has precisely three boxes for sale containing retired crayons. Now, these retired crayons sound very nice: I am particularly attracted to the idea of having a blue gray crayon, because there just aren't enough crayons on the blue-gray spectrum, and both green blue and maize sound like they would be very useful to have as well. But all three of these boxes contain the *same* eight retired crayons. They are centennial boxes, and as such contain all the crayons retired before the year 2000.

They do not contain the four crayons retired in the year 2003.

I have no access to the four crayons retired in the year 2003.

Blizzard blue, magic mint, mulberry, and teal blue. They are PHENOMENAL COLORS! They are SO AWESOME. Seriously. OK, I could probably do without blizzard blue, which is probably exactly why I stumbled across that one lone crayon in a drawer the other day, lost remnant of a 100-crayon box long since lent to someone I haven't seen in six years. But magic mint? Mulberry? Teal blue? I DO NOT KNOW HOW I CAN GO ON COLORING KNOWING THAT THESE BEAUTIFUL SHADES ARE LOST TO ME. Mulberry would be amazing! There are, like, four dark-red crayons, and NO MORE. Seriously, it's maroon, brick red, and -- and then there's plain red, and THERE IS NOT EVEN A FOURTH ONE. Because they RETIRED MULBERRY. And magic mint would be lovely for cooling down the more intense shades of green that are pretty much your only recourse when you are coloring hills and things -- I have been using spring green for that, but not all hills require an undertone of yellow -- and teal blue is an important ocean-and-river color, people. I'm telling you, it is.

They retired these. All four of them. And do you know what they replaced them with? Inchworm and wild blue yonder, which are meh colors, and mango tango, which is worse... and JAZZBERRY JAM. Jazzberry jam is, bar none, my *least favorite* crayon in the *entire box of 150 Crayola crayons*. It's worse than, like, neon carrot. It's an abomination.

And for this I lost my mulberry.

Also they took thistle out of the 120 and 150 boxes, and the site seems to differentiate that from "retiring" it, but I don't know why, because it doesn't look like you can get that anymore either, and I want a thistle crayon.

Why is my life full of woe? My life is so full of woe.

ATTENTION WORLD: YOU HAVE DEFAULTED ON YOUR OBLIGATION TO PROVIDE ME AND OTHER OBSESSIVE COLORERS WITH CRAYON DEALERS WHO WOULD MAKE FINANCIAL PROFIT OUT OF OUR OBSESSION. PLEASE RECTIFY THIS SITUATION BEFORE I SHOW UP AT THE CRAYOLA FACTORY WITH A JAZZBERRY JAM CRAYON AND THREATEN TO HAMMER IT UP SOMEONE'S NOSE AND STRAIGHT INTO THEIR BRAIN, A LA HOMER SIMPSON, IF THEY DO NOT REISSUE 2003'S RETIRED COLORS TO ME IMMEDIATELY

*About nine, ten years ago it was 100 crayons; then it went up to 120, and finally, this year, to 150, PLUS a badly-needed spiraling display case so I can actually see all the colors I can select from! Huzzah! Also a box of 150 crayons costs like $16 or something, but NEVER MIND THAT, IT IS IMPORTANT. A piano costs like THOUSANDS of dollars, so WHATEVER.

Comments

[roina-arwen.livejournal.com]

RECTIFY THIS SITUATION BEFORE I SHOW UP AT THE CRAYOLA FACTORY WITH A JAZZBERRY JAM CRAYON AND THREATEN TO HAMMER IT UP SOMEONE'S NOSE

Wouldn't it be more appropriate to JAM it up someone's nose? I'm just sayin... :)

I love your ranty posts, they are just made of awesome!

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

You know, that was what I wrote initially, but I have always had a bad habit of getting hold of certain words and repeating them several times in the course of a paragraph, so whenever I post an entry I do a cursory check-through and correct whatever repetitions there may be. I changed "jam" to "hammer" for that reason. But in this case I think you're right, it probably would have made a good pun... damn. Maybe I should check a little less cursorily next time.

[roina-arwen.livejournal.com]

I do the same thing with proofreading and trying to get rid of extraneous or oft-repeated words, so I know where you're coming from. Personally, I love me some good puns! And I agree that Crayola crayons are SO SO SO much better than Rose Art that it isn't even funny!

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

I love to color. I also only love Crayola, and I am sad to know that Mulberry is no more. I'm also a fan of Thistle. I guess it's been a while since I bought a box of colors. I should rectify this.

I wonder if I have an old box packed away somewhere.

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

Some of the new crayons are pretty boss. Probably my favorite crayon in the whole set of 150 is "outer space", which is basically black with the barest tint of blue. For some reason, and I don't know exactly why, it's fantastic for shading. You outline a cloud with it and then color the cloud in with white or light gray, skimming the lighter crayons over the outer-space outline and softening and blending the edges, and they turn into like the best clouds ever colored.

Also, apparently it's the same shade that they used to call "torch red", but the crayon they now call scarlet is awesome.

[chavvah.livejournal.com]

I have a box of 64 crayons from about 1999-2000. If you tell me the names of the colours you want, I can check to see if I have them. They may not be in great condition though.

EDIT: I just realized that this may not help (I R MATH GENIUS). However, I could be wrong about the year, so tell me and I'll check anyway.

EDIT 2: And I see you also posted the names. I thought you were just describing the colours. I need to learn to fucking read. Today=not my day.

[bookgrrrl.livejournal.com]

Clearly this needs to go to the top.

Crayola
1100 Church Lane
PO Box 431
Easton PA 18044-0431
Attn: Consumer Affairs
1-800-272-9652

[chavvah.livejournal.com]

Well, I had no success with my crayon box in finding your colours. However, if you ever want some well-loved bilingual crayons (English and French) from the Great White North, let me know. ;)

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

Hee! I am actually currently developing something of a fetish for vintage crayons, but I don't want to rob you of your supply. You can bring them in September and we can have a coloring party though! OMG WE ARE SO DOING THIS

Also, did you know that American crayons are trilingual now? They have English, Spanish, and French on them. I wish they had had that when I was a kid. I would totally have known the name of every color known to man in both Spanish AND French, and it might even have increased my comfort level with the spelling and composition of French words in general, which I find completely non-intuitive.

[chavvah.livejournal.com]

My mum has me pretty scheduled for the trip (I will e-mail you our itinerary) but I think there's one day she and my aunt are going to Cape Cod. We could colour then.

If I can find it, I will bring you a copy of the colouring book I put together for [site]'s 175th anniversary a few years ago.

[ftmichael.livejournal.com]

Not only am I not sad about the loss of thistle, I do not understand the difference between thistle and lavender (if I'm remembering thistle correctly - I remember it being one of my least favourite colours ever, and I was the child who said 'I like every colour except lavender' and meant it).

Clearly I fail at colouring. I bow before your obvious superiority.

Please call Crayola customer service and let us know what they say!

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

See, I picture thistle as being a little darker, but maybe I've got it wrong. I'm probably mixing it up with orchid a bit in my head.

I am going to WRITE TO Crayola customer service, because I think this is an important matter that needs written documentation.

Also, a dislike for lavender does not make you a bad colorer -- I dislike many shades in the crayon box, and there are several I have never used for anything at all -- but it might make you a bad queer person! Lavender is the queerest shade ever!

(Note: I am kidding. You are an excellent queer person.)

[ftmichael.livejournal.com]

Oh, orchid! Another colour I was never fond of. ;) I think they're lying to us about the differences between some of those shades. It reminds me of an episode of Frasier where Frasier and Niles were preparing for a party, and Niles was telling Frasier just how much to dim the lights: 'A little more, a little more ... a little less ...' Frasier gave up and walked away from the light switch, but Niles didn't see him and kept going 'Less ... just a little more ... a little more ... there, that's perfect!'

Perhaps you could work out a trade with someone who has an older box of crayons, and give them the shades you don't like in exchange for shades you're so desperately missing.

I quite agree about the written documentation! Let us know what their form letter personal response says.

*hides my queer membership card so you cannot steal it and turn it in* I am such an excellent queer person! I like rainbows! I swear!

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

And then Frasier says "Good!", halfway across the room from the light switch. :) Oh, man, you made a Frasier reference, so I can't disagree with you. What I'll say instead is that some of the colors, especially on the blue-purple spectrum, are insufficiently distinct -- I won't say that any of them are *exactly* the same, because in my experience they are not, but they can be awfully close. And this really should change, because it means that, for example, the red spectrum gets the shaft. Like I said: three shades of dark red. A lot of purpley-fuchsia-ish shades, but maroon and brick red and red itself are they only deep red shades that exist, before you start heading into either fuchsia or orange.

I also have a hard time imagining that anybody would be willing to trade something as beautiful as mulberry for, like, JAZZBERRY JAM or NEON CARROT. They're just... ugh! Seriously, do even kids like these horrible fluorescent shades? Or do they just like the names? I never liked the weirdly unnatural bright colors when I was a kid. My favorite colors were forest green, brick red, pine green and maroon.

Also, my least favorite shade ever was carnation pink. It was the only pink they put out (I considered lavender to be a purple) and I HATED it. One time I sent my little brother on a mission to find me a pink crayon, somewhere in the house, that wasn't carnation pink. We were a Crayola household, so of course he couldn't find one, but he searched half the day before he found a broken one where the name was gone. I was suspicious, but consented to use it.

[ftmichael.livejournal.com]

Lavender is absolutely a purple! I don't like pink at all, and have never been very fond of pastel colours - and I've never liked the unnaturally bright stuff. I guess someone somewhere likes it.

I hope you gave your brother some cookies for searching the house for half a day to find you a pink crayon.

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

I was six and he was four and I think we were playing a game where he was my servant for the day. Service to me, Queen Kylie, was more than reward enough for the boy.

[roseyv.livejournal.com]

YOu know what color I loved? Orchid. Do they still make orchid? Because I would like to paint my hallway that color.

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

They totally still make orchid. You could either try to order it from Crayola in bulk and color your walls orchid -- this would be fun, if time-consuming -- or you could just buy one set and hold it up to various Benjamin Moore swatches until you found the right one.

[roseyv.livejournal.com]

I think I would more likely just bring the crayon to the Home Depot and have them mix it. I don't own my apartment, and I think the landlord might object to me crayoning his walls, among other problems.

[filthspigot.livejournal.com]

Cornflower circa 1981. Dearly-missed, perfect shade of the early summer night sky.

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

Man, that's what I'm talking about. Cornflower's still around and that's exactly what it's right for.

[fanboy-of-zeus.livejournal.com]

I have a box of 64 Crayola crayons which is, as far as I can tell, from 1990. It has teal blue and mulberry; I haven't sorted through every crayon to see what else it has, and I don't know which of them are retired or what you might want, but those two, at least, are yours if you want them (the tip of the mulberry's worn down slightly, but they're both in very good condition).

(Actually, when I say "I have"...it's got my name written all over the box, but it was in a drawer of my mom's/the family's art supplies; I'd probably have to check before giving away the whole box, but a few crayons should be fine.)

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

Hee! OMG I COULD GET MULBERRY AND TEAL. THEY ARE SO IMPORTANT. I should probably double-check to make sure that there aren't any Crayola boxes on eBay that definitely contain them; there are no sets specifying that they contain "retired crayons" (the ones from 2003), and 100-count boxes are hard to come by, but I used different search terms today and found more results than I had before. The difference is that people apparently do not understand that their crayons are VINTAGE. Weird people, to eBay something without understanding its rarity. Anyway, yeah, but I will keep your offer in mind! Because DUDE. MULBERRY.

[roseyv.livejournal.com]

Now, are you absolutely 100% sure teal is its own separate color? Because when I think of the actual color teal (and mind you, I'm not a Crayola fanatic), I think of the color that used to be called "ultramarine." But probably that's just me.

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

According to the List of Crayola Crayons wiki that andrewducker just linked me to -- and the people who wrote it seem as obsessive as I -- teal was its own color, and was in fact replaced by wild blue yonder. They have a whole list of the renamings and replacements.

[fanboy-of-zeus.livejournal.com]

If you happen to find a 64-count box from 1990, it definitely has mulberry, teal, and thistle; not having your expertise regarding crayons, I have no idea if any of the other sixty-one colors it has (okay, so my box only has sixty others - but still, eighteen years and I only lost one!) might be rare.

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

At this point I think that my plan is to write to Crayola and DEMAND FREE RETIRED CRAYONS. Because they are SO lying about what they've retired and what they haven't, and I require reasonable compensation for my unofficially-retired-crayon deprivation.

[llnaughty.livejournal.com]

here are some auctions that include at least the 8 retired in 1990. unfortunately i haven't found any that include the 4 retired in 2003.

(reposted with shorter urls.)

http://cgi.ebay.com/72-CRAYOLA-COLLECTORS-COLORS-LIMITED-EDITION-8-RETIRED_W0QQitemZ370074536154

http://cgi.ebay.com/1990-Crayola-Tin-with-pack-of-8-retired-colors_W0QQitemZ290250523043QQ

[llnaughty.livejournal.com]

actually, would those sets include them? i'd think they'd include ultra blue, which is the same as blizzard blue? i'm having trouble understanding what's included in what from this list:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Crayola_crayon_colors

[llnaughty.livejournal.com]

okay, rereading your post a little closer, i realize that the auctions i linked to above are probably two of the three you found. also rereading the wikipedia list a little more carefully, focusing on the '72-'89 and '90-'92 columns, i think you'd get your desired thistle, ultra/blizzard blue, and mulberry.

i don't think magic mint and blue teal would be included, but on the latter color that'd seem to contradict fanboy_of_zeus, who has access to the actual crayons included.

(the auctions come with 72 crayons, presumably all the ones in the '72-'89 column. they added 16 and retired 8 in '90, making the total 80 crayons. both magic mint and teal blue do not appear until the '90-'92 column, so i wouldn't think they'd be in there.)

[fanboy-of-zeus.livejournal.com]

Teal blue is proudly marked as a "new color" in the 1990 box. It wouldn't be in an earlier box, but it is in mine. I wonder if I might have magic mint, too, since you mention that was added that year? If so, I haven't found it yet.

[llnaughty.livejournal.com]

sorry, i misread what you had said. i don't think teal blue would be in the boxes of the two auctions i had listed, which, while released in 1990 were i guess the "farewell" products for the 8 they were retiring. your 1990 box was probably a standard box with the then-new colors... *shrug*

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

Man, LL, you went all out researching this! O.O Never let it be said that anybody can match your 1337 Google and eBay skillz, man. I haven't had time to sift through all those auctions, and may still email Crayola because a.) I want to know why piggy pink isn't in my 150-crayon box and why they say it is, and b.) I am getting a kick out of this whole situation and would enjoy seeing what they would have to say in response. But those are some srs resources you laid down in these comments, dude. Thank you!

[llnaughty.livejournal.com]

you're welcome!

i've been trying to catch up on posts, reading them chronologically, so i hadn't read your piggy pink post until this morning. have you gone through many 150-crayon boxes and noticed piggy pink missing in all of them? maybe you just got a badly packed box?

i think the stutt.com site below will be your best bet for the 4 retired colors you're looking for. i think the centennial tins retailed for $9, so you'd only be paying a $6 premium on them, plus $5 flat shipping, if they still have them.

[llnaughty.livejournal.com]

okay, how about this:

http://www.stutt.com/tins/u-crayola.html

all 4 available centennial tins at $15/each include the crayons that came with the tins. you'll get 256 crayons + 4 x 12 retired crayons. 4 copies of each of the 4 colors retired in 2003!