What was the Royal Regiments Dark Blue Facing Colour official description

[John Mulcahy]

Does anyone know if the Dark Blue facing colour (that appears near black to the casual observer) had an official description and if so what was it?

I have seen designations in the records such as "Cloth Blue No. 2" Cloth Scarlet No 2" etc. but nothing that I can attribute to the colour above.

thanks in advance for any help.

John

[Flatdog]

John,

The official title for the colour you seek, is Midnight Blue-British Colour Council 90 or in short form BCC 90. This is the same as the General Service beret. Note there are other shades of blue out there with different names, and these are similar. Under strong light ie. daylight you can see the difference clearly, however on a computer monitor it will differ vastly. I've seen where it is listed on some regs as Dark Blue, or Royal Blue, this in reality is a "sapphire blue", because there are dark on initial impression they are listed as such. The Pantone system generally lists colours in a more descriptive fashion. For example Dark Blue is now Royal Blue, in soft light it looks black in sunlight it really pops.

BCC colour standard have been supplanted by Pantone coulourways.

But traditionally BCC is the standard.

There are a number of blues as stated above,

Blue is now known as Blue Black BCC 50 which is more descriptive.

Purple Navy-is the same Purple Navy BCC 219

Dark Blue- is Royal Blue BCC 197

Cambridge Blue-Cambridge Blue-BCC 191

Spectrum Blue-Spectrum Blue BCC 86

Light Blue-Pompadour Blue BCC 194

Oxford Blue-Oxford Blue49

Steel Blue-Steel Blue BCC 44

Adonis Blue-Adonis Blue BCC 85

Smalt-Smalt BCC147

Indigo-Indigo BCC 48

Remember that even though it may be the specific colour in regulations, different tailors use various sources of textiles and they may differ in colour saturation, and simply that is what was or is available. Even if two people see the same colour the perception is different according to individual ability to see the actual difference in shading.

Clay

[John Mulcahy]

Thank you very much Clay. this is helpful and I appreciate the difficulties in colour measurement, description & control.

Your response made me realize that I should have specified what official name (if any) was given to the colour in the period 1881-1922. Would it have been "Midnight Blue" or Simply Blue No. "X"

John

[Flatdog]

John,

I'm not quite sure on that. I would likely assume Blue No. X,as the style recorded, unless of course actually laid down in regulations.

I've seen lanyards from the 30's labeled as such, for example "lanyard, tubular braided Green No.6". BCC's didn't get "standardised until the 30's so it may be safe to assume the above without further confirmation a safe choice until further investigation changes the fact.

Interestingly the Commonwealth also followed the standard until quite recently. In fact it will give the BCC code along with the Pantone code.

All in all a fascinating field to study.

Clay