Crayola Design Change for 2011

June 24, 2011, 6:27 pm

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One of the best ways to track the history of a product is through their designs.  The majority of crayon companies make it easy these days by adding a date to their assortments.  That wasn't always the case.  Up until the 1980s a collector or enthusiast had to rely on identifying all of the design changes and then research when those changes were on the market.  That could be validated from price lists, advertising and logical deduction through other means such as from the crayons inside the assortment.

The other benefit to a wholesale design change in a product you are collecting is that it gives you new items to add to your collection.  Having a source to look at and find out about these changes is convenient because then you don't have to drop into your local stores to see if anything has changed.

2011 had been a quiet year for Crayola with only a few new products or changes.  But sometime in the spring they changed their product design across the majority of their assortments.

The washable line of crayons kept their "World's Most Washable" tagline but switched them from the red/orange banners they had been using to this new blue banner.  These have just been introduced and may take awhile for retailers to deplete their old stock and replenish with the new stock.

The regular line of crayons did just the oppisite.  They kept their "Preferred by Teachers" tagline but switched from blue banners to new red banners.

All of the new designs incorporated a crayon tip coming into the box from the lower left and pointing to the number of crayons contained in that assortment.

Meanwhile, other assortments such as the classroom focused designs have remained unchanged.  All of these are now out in retailer stores as I've picked all of them up personally.

Happy hunting...

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Collectors Notice Everything

June 24, 2011, 8:49 pm

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When it comes to Crayola crayon colors, collectors are never fooled.  Try as they might, Crayola's subtle changes of existing crayon colors don't go unnoticed.  Take for example the case of goldenrod. 

The color name stems from the plant of the same name and is most commonly referred to as a single word.  However, it is permissible to refer to it as two words:  golden rod.

The goldenrod Crayola crayon color has been around since 1903 but was first called Medium Yellow.  In 1958 they did a lot of shuffling around of their colors and renamed this color.  It remained consistent as a single word even up to this day but in 1959 something happened that is still a mystery to this day.  When Crayola introduced their larger flat box of 72 crayons (only 64 were unique; the other 8 were duplicates of red, black and blue) they put the two word version into it.  The only other assortment sold in the United States that ever contained that two word version was one early version of the original No 64 boxes but that got changed within months and the only source for the two word version was the larger box.  The crayon color could be found in smaller 48 color assortments but never as a two word version.  Same for the 64 size other than that one anomyly. 

Now, one could argue that perhaps they had made a labelling mistake.  But the two word variation remained until 1976 when Crayola moved all of their crayon wrappers to a lower-case only format and eliminated the two word version.

Adding to the confusion was the appearance of the two word version in European assortments in 1997.  They continued to use this revived variation up until 2003 when crayon production was suspended in Bedford, England in favor of consolidated production in Mexico.

The same kind of change happened with Timber Wolf.  Here was a color that was selected as a winner in their 1992 "Name the Colors Contest" and used as a two word color until 1997 when they changed it to a one word version.

But those changes was fairly easy to recognize.  Consider the case of screamin' green.  This is a Crayola color that started out life as Ultra Green Fluorescentback in 1972 when they introduced the Fluorescent specialty crayons.  The name got changed in 1990 during their decade of vast experimentation and refresh into the marketplace.  That remained constant until 1997 when all of a sudden it started showing up without the apostrophe as screamin green.  Does grammar play a role in crayon colors?  Good question!  Apparently not always.

Similarly, Jack O' Lantern Orange went to Jack 'O' Lantern Orange and even had another version where it was Jack-O-Lantern Orange.

Another example of this is the change for Purple Mountains Majesty.  Over the years they ended up with all three variations of approstrophe usage.  One with out, one as singular and one as pal.

Oh, and if you think that one is a mess of subtle changes, consider Macaroni and Cheese which has had a multitude of variations.  I won't even go into all the intricate details but the picture will give you an idea.

Yes, there are other examples of this kind of thing going on in the Crayola color world but suffice it to say, we collectors know what they are!

Toy Set Failure

June 29, 2011, 10:10 pm

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Even the most successful companies have their failures on occasion.  For Crayola (then Binney & Smith Co.) that came in the form of fancy Toy Sets.  In 1922 they expanded their original two larger box sets called Little Folks into a full line of attractive activity sets. 

They thought that the success of the two Little Folk Outfit boxes could be expanded.  Unfortunately they were wrong.  The idea seemed reasonable.  Put together an attractive theme and include some crayons, some coloring page material and perhaps even paint and brushes.

What they failed to consider was that the cost of producing these sets forced them to set the price that was outside their market.

Crayons boxes in this era were only several cents and these boxes cost up to $2 which made them affordable only to the upper income families.

Crayola should have already learned that lesson having set out right from the beginning to produce the best quality crayon and an affordable price.

Crayola kept their toy set line going from 1922 until 1929 when they finally admitted that they weren't making money on them and in fact losing money.  By this time they had introduced nearly a dozen different sets.  The relatively short time span these were available make them some of the most desirable and expensive assortments to obtain now.


Several of the boxes have only a single surviving example and many have none at all (so far).

Crayola wasn't alone though.  American Crayon and others also attempted theme color sets with little success; all learning the same ageless lesson in price point to consumers.

Perhaps one of the rarest of the themed coloring sets was Crayola's Baby Snookums Coloring Set.

This was a set that used a then licensed character; Baby Snookums.  In 1927 when Crayola introduced this set, Baby Snookums was a media phenom of the time.  He was one of the first child movie stars and had a host of products with his image.  

Sadly, Baby Snookums only lived to be 10 years old; he died of blood poisoning.  This box was only out on the market for less than 2 years and no examples are known to exist.  Until one surfaces we only have advertising to know it existed.


While the toy sets didn't create gold for Crayola or other companies, they did set the gold standard for rarity and desirability for those now collecting them.

Branding Masters

July 4, 2011, 9:08 pm

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Nobody really disputes Crayola's crayon quality; that's why they've sold billions of crayons for over a hundred years.  But another reason they are the powerhouse of crayon success is branding.

Crayola wasn't first to make crayons so it wasn't like eBay where first on the market guaranteed success.  The reality is that Crayola came about a decade after such companies like Franklin Mfg and Standard Crayon Co. had been selling school crayons with established product lines. 

Still, this was a big country and a lot of territory to sell to and the reality was that all the initial companies selling crayons were still trying to figure it out offering up product name after product name hoping to catch the market's

Crayola's first attempt at branding consistency was the inclusion of a school girl coloring on an easel.  This appeared on virtually all of their early crayon boxes.  The trouble was that it appeared on the back of the crayons and not on the front which what displayed in retailer shops.

But in 1904 they won the Gold Medal at the iconic St. Louis World's Fair and came up with the brainchild to use the medal design on their boxes to create a new look.  At first they only used it on their new No. 8 (another size that wasn't theirs first but in the end was so familiar that now it is just assumed they came up with it first.)

Their Gold Medal line resonated and by 1910 they expanded the style to include more and more product lines.  And though they made changes over the years, it was like watching your own kids grow up; they were small enough that nobody really noticed.

Yes, they kept their branding and made changes along the way.  They even dropped the Gold Medal reference by the 1960s and yet we all sort of visualize a simple yellow and green box when we think of it at all.  Meanwhile, they left all their competitors behind based on quality AND familiarity.

Brownies

July 6, 2011, 7:59 am

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Back in the late 1800s and early 1900s a gentleman by the name of Palmer Cox created a series of childrens stories and used an old Scottish folklore character called a Brownie.

Palmer's Brownies became all the rage and was one of the first characters to be used on products to help sell them.

Several crayon companies took advantage of the opportunity along with other companies.  Eastman Kodak made a whole camera based on the Brownies.  Their camera was actually called the Brownie and came with a character on the outer packaging. 

In the world of crayons, American Crayon Company and New England Crayon Company were the two manufacturers that used Brownies on their packaging.

American went the furthest with the theme.  In their original 1902 catalog they featured several different crayon assortments that were named after Palmer Cox's characters.  New England Crayon Company didn't quite go that far.  They only featured the Brownies on their Pride line of crayons from 1905.

There is further evidence of the craze too.  Though Franklin Mfg. Co. didn't put the Brownies on any of their crayon boxes at the time, they did promote them by adding something inside the boxes as this article from a trade magazine of the time shows.

There are collectors out there that specialize only in Brownie advertising and Brownie history.  That makes it difficult to obtain any surviving examples of crayon assortments featuring these characters.  In addition to the Pride box, I have been able to obtain several wooden canisters of Brownie crayons.

While this may be all that has survived the Brownie craze back in the day, there have been many examples of Palmer Cox's Brownies influences in modern times.  Having a Brownie desert; the chocolate treat kids (and adults) love comes from the characters.  Sears introduced the recipe in their 1897 catalog; right during the height of the Brownies craze.  The Girl Scout Brownies are named after them.  The baseball team Cleveland Browns were too.  They have been featured in movies like Willow and even the house elves in Harry Potter are a similar character.  Yes, Brownies are some of my treasured crayon containers.

Crayons during War Time

July 24, 2011, 10:17 am

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As the modern day crayon has been around in decorative packaging since the late 1800s, I have to wonder what impact the war had on the crayon world.  Every other segment of society was impacted, why not crayons?

Sure, you'd think it unlikely that crayons sold to kids would bear any evidence of the war but in reality, they did.  My Cadet crayon box clearly shows a canon and a military outfit camp.  This is most likely a representation of a military prior to World War One given the age of the product.

World War Two created a lot of propoganda onto the market in order to support the war efforts.  Everything from war bonds to movie promotions.  Even crayons were affected as we can see from these examples.  The interesting thing to note about the one in the lower right is that Japan too did propoganda boxes to support their war effort.  So in effect, there are examples from both sides of the war effort in that photo.

Character crayons were quite popular and Popeye was a mainstay among crayon boxes for several manufacturers.  So who better to portray War support than the ex-Navy cartoon character himself!  That's quite a statement to portray firing crayons in a surface to air missile during the war.  Those were different times though.

A lot of the war effort boxes portrayed fighter jets in some way or another.

But World War Two didn't only impact some of the packaging.  The color sources for a lot of the pigments were either severed or eliminated.  Crayola went from having over 50 colors to dropping down to only 24 colors; their lowest level in the history of their company.  They didn't get some of their colors re-sourced until the early 1950s and several of them changed the color because they were probably from a new source.

Yes, wars impact even crayons.

Trademarks and Copyrights

August 14, 2011, 10:00 am

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Back in January 1895 the Franklin Manufacturing Company launched one of their flagship crayon lines, the Franklin Rainbow colors.  They filed for a trademark registration of "Rainbow" in March of that year and the registration was official by May.

It was a good thing they did because The Standard Crayon company launched a new box of crayons that same summer with the word Rainbow in it's product name. 

Trademarks protect businesses from having competitors copy or use their creative work through a name or mark for a given industry sector.  In this case, Franklin already had exclusive rights to use the word "Rainbow" for crayons; no one else could do so.

Franklin took the position to say they would litigate over the infringement and Standard backed down by making some monitary compensation and discontinuing the process on the condition they could sell out what inventory they had.

All was good again.  Until 1912 that is.

It seemed that Standard Crayon Company was up to their old tricks again and blatantly copied an earlier design Franklin was using for one of their own new brands.  Even the names were almost identical here. 

I don't know if Franklin responded to this infringement or not.  The question here is whether they went through with registering Golden Gate as a mark or not.  If they did, they probably had grounds to litigate.  If they didn't, then they fell victim to Standard's apparently ruthless business practice of taking advantage of other's creative work.

Even in the crayon industry one had to be safe with their products. Crayon history is full of litigation between companies trying to leverage on other companies successes.  Imagine some low quality crayon manufacturer packaging their crayons into a box that looked very similar to Crayola's yellow and green box?  You bet Crayola will care; they don't want their brand image tarnashed by a lower quality knock off.

It's a crayon-over-crayon-color world out there and you have to be on guard all the time!

International Updates

August 29, 2011, 6:02 pm

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More news for 2011 for Crayola but it comes from the international arena this time.  It seems that Crayola has partnered with Disney in Japan to create a series of crayon boxes using the familiar Disney characters of Mickey and Minnie Mouse.

They've come out with 8,12,16 and 24 color boxes for these and they appear to only be available in Japan.  Alas for you color collectors out there but the crayons are the standard tri-lingual wrappers so nothing new there.

Another interesting box now out for sale in Japan is their "Anpanman" Triangular box.  If you are not familiar with who Anpanman is that is not surprising.  He is one of the most popular anime characters in Japan these days.

Now this one clearly has unique wrappers on each crayon with anime characters on them.  I can't tell you what the color names are because I won't break the seal of my box.  I should have ordered two!  Perhaps these are unique color names too...time will tell.

This isn't the first time we've seen unique Crayola box designs come from overseas.  Earlier this year we had another Asian variation show up.

In years passed we've seen similar attempts as well.  Some aren't really legitimate new boxes though.  Below is an example where they just created an outer sleeve to put over a normal USA box in order to target those in Asia.

When things are quite collecting crayon boxes here in the USA, sometimes we can find new things to add to our collections by looking elsewhere in the world.

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Strange Patterns

October 13, 2011, 7:20 pm

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When you build a large collection of crayons, you start to notice some unusual patterns or connections that make you scratch your head.

For example, Crayola was headquartered in New York at 81-83 Fulton St which happened to be the same address for the Antiseptic Crayon Co.  So why did they use a psuedonym company for these crayons?  They certainly made industrial crayons using the Binney & Smith name so why the change?

Another example is the General Crayon Co. in Easton, PA.  Easton is the location of the Crayola factory and has been since the beginning.  Easton is a small rural town and so it seems very suspicious that another crayon company would be located right next to Crayola.  More likely is that this is yet another psuedonym that Crayola did for some reason.  We may never know the real back story though.

The Crayarto brand of crayons is another example of a clear pattern.  Three different companies seemed to have distributed not only the same brand name but the nearly the same graphics.  To this day I don't know why this is.

The Crayola No 100 Box

January 3, 2012, 12:58 pm

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I've been trying for years to complete owning an example of each of the crayon boxes in the following photo:



These represent most of the original boxes Crayola put out in their original 1903/1904 catalog.  All of the boxes are known to exist and I've personally managed to obtain all but two now.

Many years ago I got a box of the No. 100.  It was a 14 color box that was a smaller offering to the full 28 color No. 51 box.  The colors were numbered in both of these boxes and corresponded to the same set of colors originally used.

The only problem with my No. 100 box was that it was missing the outer flap that identified it as a Crayola box.  Other than the original photo above, I'd never seen a picutre of the box.  The one in the photo is also buried under several other boxes so I couldn't get a close look at the design.  Here was what it looked like without the flap:

Here's what you'd see if you opened the flap.  The color numbers skip because they only selected a sampling of the 28 colors offered in the larger box.

Here's an example of the back of the box.  It was very common with the earliest Crayola boxes to have a lot of text instructions about how to use their product since they were so new.

Just this last year I picked up another surviving No. 100 box with the flap intact.

Just when I thought I'd upgraded my other box I realized that this one is different.  It has black lettering whereas my other one has white.  Apparently they changed the design of the box somewhere along the line. 

Looking at the original photo it is clear that the white lettered box was the first offered.  This box had to be offered sometime between 1905 and 1919 when they discontinued using it.  I'm not clear on what year this product was discontinued.  It could have been anywhere between 1914 and 1919 based on my research.  Perhaps more evidence will surface to say.

But this proves out the old collecting adage of "just when you think you've seen everything along comes something else"

And now, instead of an upgrade I have two variations and a mystery to unfold further. 

Influences

January 26, 2012, 7:13 pm

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I'd like to believe the old stories about how things were created but over time, stories tend to get distorted into mythical tales.

Take the creation of the Crayola brand name.  Sure, the founder, Edwin Binney's wife, Alice Stead Binney came up with the name.  That's a famous and well documented historical bit.

What I wonder is...what influenced her thinking?

The year was 1903 and while crayons were being produced in the United States by Standard Crayon, American Crayon, Franklin Mfg, Milton Bradley, Joseph Dixon, Eagle Pencil and a few others already, still much of the crayon supply came in from Europe.  The French in particular were entrenched in the artists mediums.  Conte' was one of the oldest and largest at that time.

They also had a crayon product called Crayolor which was on the market at least as early as 1900 but may in fact go back even earlier.

Could that have been a direct competitive influence when they chose the name?  We may never know but I find the similarity interesting
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Of course, even closer to the mark is the story of their artist line of crayons.  Binney & Smith put out a separate product line called "Rubens" to focus on the artistic industry while the standard Crayola brand focused primarily on the education sector.  The Rubens line have been a bit mis-informed over the years.  Countless documents have them debuting in the 1920s when in fact they debuted right from the beginning in 1903.  Interestingly, the French also had a grand-master sponsoring a crayon product (well, not literally sponsoring of course).

Take a look at the above Raphael box and tell me that the first Rubens box isn't very similar in design and concept.

Coincidence?  Perhaps...but I don't think that's very likely.  I think it was a shrewd marketing ploy for Crayola to compete head to head and displace the European influence in the crayon market.  And guess what?  It worked.  While the Rubens line only lasted a few decades, they did their part of tip the scales of crayon manufacturing to the USA as Crayola became more and more dominant.

Of course, other countries play a factor in naming too.  One of the big mysteries is what this crayon box really is?  Clearly this was either a blatant copyrite infringement at a time when perhaps global enforcement wasn't possible or it was a mocked up box created as a joke.  Either way, this "other" Crayola product by a Hong Kong company remains a mystery.

The back story is that this is a photo copy of an actual box of crayons by some Crayola employee long ago and there is a note next to it that says "How did we get these?" on it.  Unfortunately, the physical boxes were destroyed in a flood at their headquarters many years ago so we don't have any further evidence to support a theory either way.  Maybe some day the truth will reveal itself and the mystery will get solved.

The Mysterious Target Exclusive Set

May 21, 2012, 11:02 pm

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Keeping up a collection for a product that sells now can sometimes be extremely challenging.  As if it weren't hard enough trying to acquire those Crayola items from over 100 years ago, it seems that products that just left the retail market can be even harder to find.

At least with the older stuff, people that want to sell them recognize their age and do offer them up as collectibles.  This isn't normally the case with the recent Crayola items.

Case in point, Walmart put out a specially designed box of 64 Crayola crayon with special colors that were scented and though this was only back in 2009; only one collecter managed to find them in a store.  And nobody has seen one since.  We have literally one example saved.  Sure, there may be many, many more out there but until they actually surface into the hands of the collecting community, there's only one.

Now we have an even bigger challenge and though it's out right now, it's seemingly already too late to catch it.

Target worked with Crayola to produce a set of fun 8-color assortment boxes with special themes.  They designed 30 of these for the set and they were made to sell only in Target stores (says so right on the box).

To make matters worse, they aren't selling these online.  They can only be found at their stores.  Oh, and they're not in every store.  It's sporadic where you will find them across the United States.  Oh, and even if you do find them, chances are good you won't find all of them.  In fact, I know so.  I'll explain in a moment...

First lets set some context on how these rolled out.  They actually did a pilot for these in select stores back in November 2011.

The collecting community was lucky that a private collector (Cortnie) discovered them and picked up as many of them as she could.  However, she could only piece together two complete sets of 28 different boxes at the time.  After that she put together 25 box set and then had spares of this and that particular box.

However, even though there were only 28 hangers for the mega-display these came out with, Crayola informed me that in reality there were 30 different boxes and that they weren't even out in production yet.

That was back in Feb 2012 and just a month before they hit the stores for real.  It turns out that during the pilot, the two boxes not found in that set were Princess Party and Rocker Party.

By this time I had acquired the 25 box set.  The other 28 box set went for a ridiculous amount of money; a speculation that might have turned out lucrative had the boxes never reappeared from that pilot.  However, since they did...that money was on speculation and was wasted.  They spent over $500 on a set they could have picked up for $28.

Thus is the plight of the collector.  One never knows if they'll ever see something again.  It's particularly difficult to judge when you are faced with a large set you don't even have knowing full well that it might never appear again as a full set.

Of course, by the time I had realized these were selling and then later realized none of my Target stores were going to carry them, I took the task of documenting what all of the boxes were and which ones I still needed.

I had to get Crayola to identify the two mystery boxes, Princess Party and Rock Party.  These weren't part of the sets from the prototype sales.  Still, nobody seemed to be finding these particular boxes.

I was fortunate to fill in my own set from 25 to 27 but I still lacked an All-Star Party box.  That left me with three boxes to find.  It was time to be a little more aggresive in my pursuit.

I took on the task of calling Target.  Since they only sold in stores, they weren't in my area and none of the other collectors had found them my only choice was customer service.  This stuff isn't easy, folks.  Here's my personal experience in working with Target.

Call one:  I had to work my way through their maze of automated menuing and then wait in a queue and once I got an actual person, they hung up on me.  Start over...

Call two:  I again worked my way through and got somebody on the phone.  It took some time to explain what I was looking for.  I had to actually spell Crayola for them; as if they were the only person on the planet that didn't recognize the brand name.  They put me on hold while they did some searching.  While on hold, their automated system took over and redirected me to a claims and returns office.  Start over...

Call three:  Worked my way through their menu...again...and then waited in the queue...again.  This time I explained what happened in my prior calls and they appologized for the trouble and then put me on hold.  The automated system took over...again....and I got kicked out.  Start over...

Call four:  By this time I was impatient.  I got through to somebody and told them I'd be quite unhappy if they put me on hold.  I explained why.  I went through my entire speech on what I was looking for.

Fortunately for me, I had a bunch of the boxes already and so even though I knew which ones I didn't have, they couldn't search for them by name.  So I gave them one of the UPC numbers from the back of another box.  I reasoned that if they could find where one was being sold, chances are they could find the ones I was missing.

The operator floundered around for awhile and even questioned whether there truly were 30 different boxes.  By then it had struck me that I could probably prove it.  I put my boxes in order by UPC number and sure enough, two of the numbers were missing.  The third one I needed just happened to be the highest UPC number.

Having all the UPC numbers for the boxes I didn't have, he proceeded to look them up.  We found "Princess Party" within 60 miles of me.  Unfortunately, "All-Star Party" and "Rock Party" were sold out.  Everywhere in the United States.  You just couldn't get those boxes anymore.

So, short of using my connections at Crayola to track them down, I've struck out at only 28 of 30 boxes.  The same number as the two collectors that have them from the prototype sale back in Nov.  Even they cannot get a complete set.  The best they can do is to track down "Princess Party" at another store and get that.  "Rock Party" will elude all of us in the end.

For those of us completists that want the full set, it's hard to believe that something selling right now can still be out of reach.

Thus is the plight of special make up Crayola boxes.  They come quietly and leave quietly and without the small community of crayon collectors, we might never even know they existed.

Fun Crayon Facts

June 15, 2012, 6:20 pm

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Crystal Blue is a color used in the Tommy James song "Crystal Blue Persuasion" but there has never been a crayon color called Crystal Blue.

In the entire history of the crayon industry, Crayola has come up with more color names for their crayons than every other crayon manufacturer combined

William Mahoney was credited by Crayola with having the largest collection of color crayons; the distinction being that each crayon was a distinct color and individually documented.  I know William and he has no idea where they got their information but he does have an impressive color collection.  While he has probably a hundred colors I don't have, I identified several hundred he doesn't.  So while I don't collect by color per say, my collection is large enough that it does contain more individual colors than even his.  Yet providing another example of something where size does matter.

Crayola has made three different crayons named "Light Blue" and yet they are all a different color.  The first one was done for E.F. Charlton department stores prior to 1917.  The date is important because after that the department stores became Woolworths when a merger formed the Woolworths company.  Only one example of this crayon is known.  The second one was put into only the earliest No 64 boxes around 1958 and quickly pulled out because it was so close to "Sky Blue" that the color didn't seem to provide anything new to the assortment.  There is no mention of "Light Blue" anywhere in Crayola's retired or documented information.  Consequently, this is a rare crayon and only a dozen or so have surfaced.  The last version was used in Crayola's original Fabric Crayon boxes but later dropped from the color names.  Thought not particularly rare, it is no longer available and therefore makes it difficult to acquire any of the examples of this color name.

The 1958 Light Blue next to the Sky Blue from the same assortment

The original extremely rare version

C-Rex was a color name used by Crayola for a Kraft Macaroni and Cheese promotion and there was only a single crayon made with this name; the winner of the contest.  It is unknown what this crayon looked like and nobody can be sure if the crayon has survived since the winner was allowed to keep it and no records were kept on who won.

Alphabetically, the first crayon name is Acorn and has been used by both RoseArt and Sanford.  Technically, two other color names precede this but they are both "theme colors"; meaning they were colors taken from the standard color line and used in a special themed assortment box.  The first was Crayola's "Aaron McKie’s favorite - cerulean" which was a special giveaway during a Philadelphia 76ers basketball game where they added special white crayon wrappers to every crayon in a 16-color box and all of them were based on team member's favorite colors.  The other crayon was "Abra Goldenrod" which was part of RoseArt's Pokemon crayon box and contained names of Pokemon for each crayon color.

Alphabetically, the last color name is Zircon.  Crayola created this for their Gemstone crayon set and it was a metallic based color.  It's also fairly difficult to obtain since this was only released in Canada.

Ebay's Collecting Demise

June 23, 2012, 1:31 am

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Without question, the best source of older crayons is Ebay.  I've personally been on there since 1997 so I've got 15 years of perpective to share from a collector point-of-view.

But have you noticed that in the last few years, Ebay has a remarked drop in quality and quantity?  Why is that?  Let's examine.

The golden era of Ebay was probably 1999 to 2006.  Those first few years from 1995 to 1999 were just too few people on there to really have been considered the sweet spot for finding things.

By 2002 though, if I searched on crayons I could find thousands of auctions and of those there were dozens of vintage crayons coming up.  It was actually hard and costly to even keep up.

Of course, that first wave brought out all the stuff that had never surfaced before because nothing existed to facilitate it.  Selling to an antique store or through a garage sale wasn't very lucrative.  Collecting was nearly impossible because the sources of finds were so spread apart.  There's only so long before the majority of stuff has finally surfaced.

One of the biggest contibutors to their quality and quantity demise was the elimintation of the ability to know who was bidding and and winning auctions.  In another case of a few bad people ruining something for everyone, Ebay masked the usernames on their auctions and forever changed small collecting communities.  Suddenly we could no long police from shill bidding.  We didn't know if there was a new collector out there.  They took away an element of community and added to their element of commerce.  It was as if the soul of Ebay were ripped from it.

The recent recesion didn't help either.  It wiped out a good majority of the collectors.  If you have no demand, items don't show up as much.

Another interested feature that disappeared recently was the ability to search on "all countries and all regions".  It used to be a drop down list selection on the advanced search screen and they removed it.  If you call them on it, they claim it is still there but it isn't.  While it looks like it does indeed default to that, it doesn't.  I just happened to put in the UK specifically and crayons were coming up that weren't in my default search.  I don't happen to like having to do multiple country searches when I didn't have to before.  What product removes functionality?

And despite it all, things occasionally pop up.  Why just today's search revealed another Imp crayon box from England; one that with over 11 years of collecting crayons on there, I had never seen it before.

And how cool are the graphics on this?  So while something truly great is far and few between these days, they still show up from time to time and it keeps me looking.

The Crayola Target "Pick your Pack" Exclusive Set

December 7, 2012, 5:06 pm

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It was only a couple of posts ago that I published the "mysterious" Target exclusive set of Crayola boxes.  Sometimes when you are in the midst of something real-time it's difficult to pull back and see the forest through trees, so to speak.  That was the case for this set of crayon boxes.

The set actually started back in the fall of 2011 as a test market item that went to a limited set of Target stores.  Crayola contracted several artists to produce art work for the set and at least two different artists were used on the actual production designs.

The theme for the set was "Pick your Pack" in which you could pick various 8-color assortments with different themes and different Crayola colors inside.  The concept was to pick a various box and then pick up an empty case that you could use the colors to create your own box and keep the crayons in. Initially, it looked like there were 30 different boxes in the full set but as time went on, I got a better oversight on these.

Joe Lacey, a freelance artist out of Southern California, did the majority of the box designs.  His style is very recognizable on the various boxes.  They all have a similar 3-D type balloon lettering to the theme name on the box.  If you study the drawings, you'll also begin to recognize his workmanship.

The ones that Joe didn't do were what I call the "party" set and they were all discontinued pretty early on so while they weren't nearly as artistic in design, they happen to be the rarest boxes to obtain just because they weren't around for very long.  Perhaps the three most difficult to obtain were "All-Star Party", "Princess Party" and "Rock Star Party".  These seemed to be the ones that weren't available over the other party ones which were "Monster Party", "Paarty" and "Sweet Party" .  With the limited release and being discontinued early and replaced by some of Joe's designs, these just weren't out long enough for many to have picked them up.  I did finally get lucky and through the help of fellow collectors picking up extras of the boxes they found, I was able to piece together a complete set of all the target boxes.

After the initial release around Nov 2011, they relaunched the set wide in the spring of 2012.  Between then and summer 2012 they made some changes.  They added "Back to Basics" and changed "Cup Cake My Day" to be replaced with "Over the Rainbow".  Some of even Joe's design boxes got discontinued.  "Awesome Autum", "Dandy Candy", "Deep Blue Sea", "Gumball Blast", "Jellybean Jumble", "Monster Mania", "Spring Fling", "Summertime", "Sundae Sprinkles", "Sweet Shop" and "Winter Chillin'" were all taken off the market.

In the fall of 2012 they introduced 12 new boxes that Joe designed and kept those around into the Christmas time along with those original boxes that weren't discontinued.

Here were the new ones:

 

Here is a complete listing alphabetically for the 43 known box designs they did for this set:

 

1.  All-Star Party.  This was discontinued around the winter of 2011/2012 and remains one of the three toughest boxes to find.   This one was done by an unknown artist as part of the "party" themed boxes.

 

 

 

2.  Awesome Autumn.  This was a Joe Lacey designed box that was available as part of the original test market boxes.  It was discontinued sometime over the summer of 2012.

 



 

3.  Back to Basics.  This was a box introduced later after the initial wide launch in early 2012 but before the final set of 12 came out in the fall of 2012.  Crayola refered to the box internally as "Classic" but nothing on the box references that name.  This was also one of the few boxes that the original design got changed.  It started off with a theme that was somewhat similar to the "Bejewelled" box but Crayola had Joe do something different.

 

 

4.  Bejeweled.  The was part of the second set of 12 boxes put out in the fall of 2012.  They were all designed by Joe Lacey.

 

 

 

5.  Blast Off.  This was part of the second set of 12 boxes put out in the fall of 2012. They were all designed by Joe Lacey.

 



 

6. Born to Rock.  This was a Joe Lacey designed box that was available as part of the original test market boxes and kept on the market through the entire offering of the set.

 

 

7.  Cup Cake My Day. This was a Joe Lacey designed box that was available as part of the original test market boxes but was taken off the market and replaced with "Over the Rainbow" instead.  They did this sometime after the wide initial launch but before the second fall launch.

 

 

8.  Dandy Candy. This was a Joe Lacey designed box that was available as part of the original test market boxes. It was discontinued sometime over the summer of 2012.

 

 

9. Deep Blue Sea. This was a Joe Lacey designed box that was available as part of the original test market boxes. It was discontinued sometime over the summer of 2012.  Joe felt this was the box that suffered the most from the original design he did without the chevrons on the box (they were added later by Crayola).

 

 

10.  Dinosaur Roar. This was a Joe Lacey designed box that was available as part of the original test market boxes and kept on the market through the entire offering of the set.

 

 

11.  Fashionista. This was part of the second set of 12 boxes put out in the fall of 2012. They were all designed by Joe Lacey.

 

 

12. Fire & Ice. This was part of the second set of 12 boxes put out in the fall of 2012. They were all designed by Joe Lacey.

 

 

13. Flower Power. This was part of the second set of 12 boxes put out in the fall of 2012. They were all designed by Joe Lacey.

 

 

14. Fruit-opia. This was part of the second set of 12 boxes put out in the fall of 2012. They were all designed by Joe Lacey.

 

 

15.  Glitterati. This was a Joe Lacey designed box that was available as part of the original test market boxes and kept on the market through the entire offering of the set.

 

 

16.  Gumball Blast. This was a Joe Lacey designed box that was available as part of the original test market boxes. It was discontinued sometime over the summer of 2012.

 

 

17.  Jellybean Jumble. This was a Joe Lacey designed box that was available as part of the original test market boxes. It was discontinued sometime over the summer of 2012.

 

 

18.  Jungle Rumble. This was a Joe Lacey designed box that was available as part of the original test market boxes. It was discontinued sometime over the summer of 2012.

 

 

19.  Mermaid Shimmer. This was a Joe Lacey designed box that was available as part of the original test market boxes and kept on the market through the entire offering of the set.

 

 

20.  Metallic Magic. This was a Joe Lacey designed box that was available as part of the original test market boxes and kept on the market through the entire offering of the set.

 

 

21.  Monster Mania. This was a Joe Lacey designed box that was available as part of the original test market boxes. It was discontinued sometime over the summer of 2012.

 

 

22.  Monster Party. This was done by an unknown artist as part of the "party" themed boxes.  You can really see how much richer the illustrations are in Joe's designs from these.  This one was available a bit longer than the three toughest boxes ("All-Star Party", "Princess Party" and "Rock Star Party") but disappeared sometime in the winter/early spring of 2012.

 

 

23.  Monstrous. This was part of the second set of 12 boxes put out in the fall of 2012. They were all designed by Joe Lacey.  He also considers this one of his favorite "edgy" designs to get approved onto the Crayola set.

 

 

24.  Neon Dreams. This was a Joe Lacey designed box that was available as part of the original test market boxes and kept on the market through the entire offering of the set.

 

 

25.  Over the Rainbow. This was a Joe Lacey replacement designed box introduced sometime after the wide launch in 2012 but before the fall launch of the remaining 12 boxes.  It was designed to replace "Cup Cake My Day".

 

 

26.  Parrrty. This was done by an unknown artist as part of the "party" themed boxes. You can really see how much richer the illustrations are in Joe's designs from these. This one was available a bit longer than the three toughest boxes ("All-Star Party", "Princess Party" and "Rock Star Party") but disappeared sometime in the winter/early spring of 2012.

 

 

27.  Pink Princess. This was a Joe Lacey designed box that was available as part of the original test market boxes and kept on the market through the entire offering of the set.

 

 

28. Pirate Treasure. This was a Joe Lacey designed box that was available as part of the original test market boxes and kept on the market through the entire offering of the set.

 

 

29.  Princess Party. This was discontinued around the winter of 2011/2012 and remains one of the three toughest boxes to find. This one was done by an unknown artist as part of the "party" themed boxes.  To my knowledge, only a couple of these got to collectors.

 

 

30.  Rock Star Party. This was discontinued around the winter of 2011/2012 and remains one of the three toughest boxes to find. This one was done by an unknown artist as part of the "party" themed boxes. To my knowledge, only a couple of these got to collectors.

 

 

31.  Rocker Girl. This was a Joe Lacey designed box that was available as part of the original test market boxes and kept on the market through the entire offering of the set.

 

 

32.  Secret Agent. This was part of the second set of 12 boxes put out in the fall of 2012. They were all designed by Joe Lacey.

 

 

33.  Splish Splash. This was part of the second set of 12 boxes put out in the fall of 2012. They were all designed by Joe Lacey.

 

 

34.  Sports Fan. This was a Joe Lacey designed box that was available as part of the original test market boxes and kept on the market through the entire offering of the set.

 

 

35.  Spring Fling. This was a Joe Lacey designed box that was available as part of the original test market boxes. It was discontinued sometime over the summer of 2012.

 

 

36.  Star Shines. This was part of the second set of 12 boxes put out in the fall of 2012. They were all designed by Joe Lacey.

 

 

37.  Summertime. This was a Joe Lacey designed box that was available as part of the original test market boxes. It was discontinued sometime over the summer of 2012.

 

 

38.  Sundae Sprinkles. This was a Joe Lacey designed box that was available as part of the original test market boxes. It was discontinued sometime over the summer of 2012.

 

 

39.  Super Heroic. This was part of the second set of 12 boxes put out in the fall of 2012. They were all designed by Joe Lacey.

 

 

40.  Surfin' Safari. This was part of the second set of 12 boxes put out in the fall of 2012. They were all designed by Joe Lacey.

 

 

41.  Sweet Party. This was done by an unknown artist as part of the "party" themed boxes. You can really see how much richer the illustrations are in Joe's designs from these. This one was available a bit longer than the three toughest boxes ("All-Star Party", "Princess Party" and "Rock Star Party") but disappeared sometime in the winter/early spring of 2012.

 

 

42.  Sweet Shop. This was a Joe Lacey designed box that was available as part of the original test market boxes. It was discontinued sometime over the summer of 2012.

 

43.  Winter Chillin. This was a Joe Lacey designed box that was available as part of the original test market boxes. It was discontinued sometime over the summer of 2012.

 

 

And there you have it.  All 43 in the Target "Pick your Pack" exclusive set.

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Walmart's new Crayola set: Crayola Meltdown

April 5, 2013, 9:38 pm

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≪ Previous: The Crayola Target "Pick your Pack" Exclusive Set

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With all the excitement over the Target exclusive "Pick your Pack" Crayola sets, it would seem Walmart wanted in on the Crayola exclusive band wagon again.  But this time, it was a bit odd because while they contracted with Crayola to develop the new Meltdown set, the set wasn't actually exclusive to Walmart stores.  Although that has been the only place collectors have found these.  And in terms of finding them?  Good luck!  So far, they've been very difficult to get.  I used my entire network to track a set down.  While I found many of the Target set boxes at my local Target stores, none of my local Walmart stores had them.  And as seems to be the norm lately, these weren't available online.  That makes them quite a rarity given that they are on the market right now.

 

The point of the set is that they were supposed to be especially coordinated for melting effects.  The crayons inside the boxes are once again just repackaging of the same colors found in other crayola assortments.  There's nothing special about the wrapper or color names in any of these other than what colors are featured together in each of these 8-color boxes.  They also use wrapper type 10 with the tri-lingual color names.  Each of the 12 box set has colors selected based on the theme for the box with a little saying on the back.

 

Here are the boxes in the set:

 

1.  Blue Fondue: Babbling Brook of Bubbling Blue!  Contains:  aquamarine, blue, blue green, cerulean, midnight blue, pacific blue, robin's egg blue, turquoise blue

 

2. Bubblin' Sun:  Shimmering Shuine of Sizzling Slush!  Contains:  macaroni and cheese, neon carrot, red, red orange, scarlet, sunglow, unmellow yellow, vivid tangerine

 

 

 

3.  Cloud Burst:  Soupy Stream of Stormy Strata!  Contains:  deep space sparkle (which is part of the Metalic FX line and has their wrapper design), indigo, manatee, navy blue, outer space, silver, sky blue, wild blue yonder

 

 

4.  Glamour Ooze:  Gloppy Glimmer of Gushing Glam!  Contains:  All glitter crayons which are no longer named colors on the label.  From the apparent color (what you see when you look at them) there is one from the green family, orange family, yellow family, red family, two from the purple family and blue family.

5.  Lime Slime:  Slow-Mo Slick of Slippery Slime! Contains: One unlabelled color from the green family of the Glitter set, electric lime, green yellow, inchworm, screamin' green, sheen green (from the Metallic FX set with their wrapper design), spring green, yellow green.  It's interesting to note that plain old Green isn't in this green-themed set.

6.  Magenta Melt:  Perfect Palette of Pinkalicious Punch!  Contains:  cerise, fuchsia, jazzberry jam, pink sherbert, plum, purple pizzazz, razzmatazz, wisteria

 

7.  Molten Metal:  Silky Shades of Streaking Steel! Contains:  These are all from the Crayola Metallic FX line and have that line's wrapper.  alloy orange, b'dazzled blue, big dip o'ruby, bittersweet shimmer, cyber grape, illuminating emerald, metallic seaweed, metallic sunburst

 

8.  Neon Soup:  Fizzling Flow of Fluorescent Fun! Contains:  atomic tangerene, carnation pink, laser lemon, melon, outrageous orange, shamrock, shocking pink, sky blue

 

9.  Oozie Smoothie:  Fabulous Fusion of Flowing Fruit!  Contains:  dandelion, goldenrod, orange, orchid, purple mountains' majesty, sunset orange, yellow, yellow orange

 

10.  Runny Rainbow:  Congealed Collection of Cool Colors!  Contains:  blue, green, indigo, orange, red, violet (purple), white, yellow.  Couple of interesting notes here.  White isn't really a color in the rainbow, white is more an absense of color.  A couple of the core colors repeat from other themed boxes in this set.

 

11.  Streamin' Green:  Gelatinous Gobs of Goopy Green!  Contains:  granny smith apple, green, inchworm, jungle green, mountain meadow, pine green, tropical rain forest, yellow green

12.  Sundae Slide:  Drippy Dollop of Dairy Dessert!  Contains:  apricot, brick red, burnt orange, fuzzy wuzzy, mahogany, peach, tickle me pink, wild watermelon

 

All-in-all, this was a nice theme set for Crayola and crayon container collectors.  2012/2013 have been pretty dry in terms of new colors coming out from Crayola but the containers have been coming out a furious rate and many are very hard to obtain.

New Crayola Color Names for their 110th Anniversary

June 19, 2013, 9:13 pm

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For those of you that collect the color names of Crayola crayons, there is good news.  Crayola put out a special 8-color box with eight new color names in honor of their 110th anniversary of the crayon brand.  That's a long time!  There aren't many brands of anything around for that length of time.

But it's been awhile waiting for Crayola to create some new color names.  The last one was clear back in 2011 when they introduced Carbon Black in honor or Joseph Binney being inducted into the Inventor's Hall of Fame for his original crayon color, black.

Of course, black was the definitive first color they introduced having been used on their industrial crayon, Staonal one year prior to them creating the Crayola brand in 1903.

This time around, we don't have any new original colors formulated.  These are renames of existing color formulas used on all their products.  The last time we had a truly new color was the introduction of "One for Fun" back in 2010 (which was their 330th original color).

In the case of these newly named colors, they were all selected from consumer suggestions and represent renaming their original 8 colors.  Of course, I've already researched their true history to reveal that they actually had 38 colors to start with, not just 8.  But that's a whole different discussion.

The new colors are:

BeYOUtiful Blue (represents Blue)
Freckle (represents Brown)
Freshly Squeezed (represents Orange)
Jalapeno (represents Green)
Ladybug (represents Red)
Night Owl (represents Black)
Peace, Love and Purple (represents Violet (purple))
Sunny Side Up (represents Yellow)

These are known color names numbers 747 through 754 throughout their history.  Slowly they inch their way to the magical 1000 different color names used for a crayon.

They put these into a retro box of their original "Gold Medal" design which actually came out in 1905 but for their purposes they associate that with their original box from 1903.  That too has been a long-standing bone of contention but I get that they're heavily invested into that design even though it actually came out a little later than their true origins.  It's sort of like saying Christopher Columbus discovered America still.  Not really true but whatever...

The interesting thing about this promotion is that it all occurred on Facebook.  Facebook fans of Crayola determined the suggestions for color names and this box only sold on Facebook and is in limited supply.  It'll surely be a good collectible in the future if they didn't manufacture too many of them.  Kudos to Crayola for keeping things interesting in the crayon and color collecting worlds!

And Still More Crayola Pick Your Pack Boxes Out

July 19, 2013, 1:39 pm

≫ Next: A Little More Clarification on the Crayola "Pick Your Pack" Variations for 2013

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Well, one thing is clear about 2013.  I'm going to have to add a special page on the Crayoncollecting.com web site to keep track of the entire "Pick Your Pack" story and the boxes in the series.

I've done several posts now trying to keep you up-to-date.  But Crayola has done it again for this summer.  They've added 7 new boxes and one box that has a minor change.

I'll have to confirm if Joe did the artwork on these.  I also need to correct my prior post because I was a little over-zealous in giving Joe credit and there were 8 boxes that weren't his artwork there that I thought were.  I'll go back and update that soon.

Meanwhile, the new boxes are:
    Howlin' Blues
    Nile Queen
    Pearl Swirl
    Pixie Dust
    Pony Party
    Totally Truckin'
    Up Owl Night
    Back to Basics (same design but with a minor change to the Pick Your Pack)

Guess that brings the box count in this series to 49 plus one more for the variation.

Not sure what colors are in these as they are so new I don't have my set yet.

For you container collectors, be sure to get the new Back to Basics box too because it has a minor change on it.

They've moved from having the exclusive at Target down in the upper left to a more generic "Pick you Pack" logo in a red circle instead.  I'm not sure if they are expanding these out beyond Target and chose to not reference the exclusive availability or not.  They are showing up at Target stores though.

This is definitely the theme these days.  Re-purpose your existing palette of colors into theme'd boxes.  All I can say is that while it drives us container collectors crazy, it is nice to have all of these to go after rather than just sitting, waiting, hoping for something new to come out.  Now, all of you individual color name collectors?  Well, it doesn't satisfy you but then again, you just did get some new Crayola color names via Facebook and their 110th anniversary box.

Look for a full feature article on the website pretty soon.  I'll continue to post updates here as they come out but I'll document the comprehensive set there.  Sort of like I do with the history of Crayola's colors.  I update that as each year passes and new colors are introduced (if at all because some years there aren't any).

A Little More Clarification on the Crayola "Pick Your Pack" Variations for 2013

July 31, 2013, 8:36 am

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On the subject of the Crayola "Pick your Pack" series...the ones that were exclusively Target but seem to now have changed to a non-exclusive set...

 

In my last post I mentioned that the "Back to Basics" box had changed slightly.  I wanted to show you the changes and point out that any box they reissue has the potential to make this change too which would mean more box variations for those of you that are trying to collect them all.

 

 

The main difference you can see is the removal of the Target symbol in the lower left of the front of the box.  They've changed this to a more generic "Pick Your Pack" round circle.  I do notice they've kept it red, which are the colors for Target.

 

I still don't know the reasoning behind this change but assume that they want to sell these in stores beyond Target.  I haven't personally seen them anywhere else so if you do, leave me a comment; I'd be interested to hear if they are somewhere else.

 

You can see that they also made some minor changes to the "non-toxic" statement at the bottom as well.  They've moved that into a bi-lingual message in a very small font just below the Pick Your Pack symbol instead of having it be in English and buried within the crayon count on the right.  Everything else on the front is the same.  Sorry for the washed out photo of the original...the colors are identical, it's just my photos that are not the same quality.

 

Now...back to the reissues.  I've heard that the following boxes have had reissues with the new "Pick Your Pack" round circle.  I haven't seen pictures and I haven't even picked them up personally because my Target stores still have the older stock for these.  Keep your eye out for them (and perhaps others that they choose to reissue).  Let me know if you find any...I'm still looking to complete my own set if these are truly legitimate!

 

Dinosaur Roar

Fashionista

Glitterati

Mermaid Shimmer

Pink Princess

 

Thanks to Heather for alerting me to these reissues and for the photo...

 

 

These would put our overall count to 55 for this set with 6 of those being minor variation changes described above.

 

New for 2013 - The Crayola Tip Color Collection Set

August 8, 2013, 9:38 pm

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As if it weren't enough to try and keep up with the "Pick Your Pack" series of Crayola crayons, they've brought out a new set of 10 different 8-color boxes.

There is no official title to this set so being as they all feature "Tip", their crayon mascot, and given they do call them a color collection on the back of the box, I've given them the arbitrary title as the "Tip Color Collection Set".  It's not sexy but it's descriptive enough.

Apparently this set is made exclusively for Walmart just like the sets they've put out recently for Target for the initial roll out of the Pick Your Pack series or the follow up Meltdown set that was geared to just specific participating Walmart stores.  For once these are actually available on line.  I've seen them at the Crayola store but I don't know if you can actually purchase them on there or not.  Either way, you cannot buy them in a set in their store but they are available as a set on Amazon and countless auctions on eBay from people speculating that people will want to pick up this set at any cost.  After the difficulty in obtaining the Meltdown set, I can see why people speculate on eBay.

Each box has their own color grouping of crayons that are in their existing palette of colors they offer in different assortments but these are grouped in a unique combination of colors you'd have to buy a very large assortment to get.

There are 10 boxes in this set.  For those of you wondering, no, there aren't any unique color names in this set.  No, the wrappers aren't unique for this set.  They use the "Type 10" wrapper designs (see the regular website pages under Crayola and then Crayons for more details).  Essentially, it's a tri-lingual wrapper with the Crayola.com reference below the name.  Only the box designs and the combination of colors make these unique.  

Here's the rundown on the set:

1. Hello Sunshine.  UPC 71662 22150  Code 52-2150-0-200  Style 52-2150
This is a set of unique yellow/orangish colors.  We have banana mania, goldenrod, laser lemon, macaroni and cheese, sunglow, unmellow yellow, yellow, yellow orange.

2. Keen Green.  UPC 71662 22152  Code 52-2152-0-200  Style 52-2152
This is a set of unique green colors.  We have asparagus, granny smith apple, green, inchworm, jungle green, olive green, pine green, spring green.

3. Nifty Neon.  UPC 71662 22158  Code 52-2158-0-200  Style 52-2158
This is a set of unique neon like colors.  We have aquamarine, atomic tangerine, electric lime, razzle dazzle rose, screamin' green, unmellow yellow, vivid tangerine, wild watermelon.

4. Peppy Pastel.  UPC 71662 22154  Code 52-2154-0-200  Style 52-2154
This is a set of unique pastel like colors.  We have apricot, canary, carnation pink, periwinkle, purple mountains' majesty, sea green, sky blue, spring green.

5. Playful Purple.  UPC 71662 22159  Code 52-2159-0-200  Style 52-2159
This is a set of unique purple colors.  cyber grape (from the Metallic line), eggplant, indigo, orchid, plum, purple mountains' majesty, violet (purple), wisteria.  One observation on this one:  They call them purple colors, not violet colors.  Interesting because they call purple on the crayon violet and then with purple in parenthesis so that people will understand what violet is.

6. Pretty Pink.  UPC 71662 22155  Code 52-2155-0-200  Style 52-2155
This is a set of unique pinkish colors.  We have cotton candy, jazzberry jam, mauvelous, pink flamingo, pink sherbert, radical red, cotton candy, wild watermelon.

7. Red Hot.  UPC 71662 21511  Code 52-2151-0-200  Style 52-2151
This is a set of unique red/orange colors.  We have brick red, mango tango, maroon, orange, red, red orange, scarlet, sunset orange.  Personally, I thought just for fun they should have brought back "torch red" and stuck it in this.  Of course, then they would have had to produce a wrapper for it because they haven't used that color name for a long time now.

8. Savvy Sand.  UPC 71662 12157  Code 52-2157-0-200  Style 52-2157
This is a set of unique brown colors.  We have antique brass, beaver, brown, copper, desert sand, gold, raw sienna, tan.  In reality, this box has more than just browns, it contains metal colors too.  Also, I like the name of this one.  How often does one get to use a word with two consecutive V's?

9. Shady Gray.  UPC 71662 12156  Code 52-2156-0-200  Style 52-2156
This is a set of black/white/gray and other odd colors.  We have black, cadet blue, deep space sparkle, gray, manatee, silver, timberwolf, white.  Of course I have to wonder what in the world cadet blue is doing among this assortment.  The box clearly says "gray" colors but I don't find many of these to really fit that description.

10. True Blue.  UPC 71662 12153  Code 52-2153-0-200  Style 52-2153
This is a set of unique blue colors.  We have blue, cerulean, denim, midnight blue, periwinkle, robin's egg blue, sky blue, wild blue yonder .

And there you have it (at least for now...who knows if Crayola will expand this).  Of the 80 colors in the 10 8-color boxes, they offer up 76 different colors.  There aren't 80 different colors because four of the colors were put into two different boxes.  Wild watermelon is in both Nifty Neon and Pretty Pink.  Sky blue is in both Peppy Pastel and True Blue. Periwinkle is also in both Peppy Pastel and True Blue.  And finally, purple mountains' majesty is in both Peppy Pastel and Playful Purple.

Final observations:  While I am very pleased to have a new set of boxes to collect, it would have been much more fun to have added the box title to one of the crayon colors as a special wrapper.  Extra costs in production, I know, but how exciting would that have been?  Also, don't expect these to be nearly as valuable and rare as the Meltdown set.  Those came and went and not many were able to get them much less get them all.  These are much more readily available.