The event that rocked the AFOL world

Well, the change came shortly after I entered my dark ages. I returned to bricks in 2018 and an early purchase was a used 6205 V-Wing. That's when I noticed "Wait, something's odd about the colours" XD.
I like the old greys better, especially dark grey, as it has a more natural hue when it yellows. Looks good for steel and rock.
On the other hand, I appreciated the new colours' stability.
If you want some pure white, I recommend COBI. But that would be a sacrilege, right?

I went into my dark ages in 2003 and didn't return until 2013. It was quite a shock when i figured out that they changed gray, dark gray, and brown. I'm a purist so I wasn't happy about it, but I've come around to it now.

I was 12 at the time, so didn't much care. But yes, I actively avoid the old colours now, unless it's an old set I want to keep as a set.

I wonder if the reaction back then has protected us from Lego changing colours more often. I was in in the middle of my dark ages at the time so I didn't notice a thing and have always kept my old Lego separate from the new stuff I brought.

I was still well in my "dark ages" when this world changing event occurred (early 90's until 2011). So I had none of my old sets and did not know that this was a thing before I stared frequenting LEGO forums etc.. To be honest I find colour inconsistency between the bricks more annoying that a clear colour difference.

Apart from getting used sets which have a mixture of wrong coloured bricks included it hasn’t impacted me.

I’d be interested to know if many new sets at the time did have a mixture of say old grey and new light blueish greys in the same box, due to some elements not being manufactured in the newer colours yet?

I was 6 at the time, and to be honest it took me a while to notice the difference. I just thought the gray pieces had more variations. I was a lazy kid, so I would mix the colors all the time in MOCs or rebuilding sets even though I thought it looked worse.

I use the old light grey and new light grey together in castle walls to add variety. But the old dark grey I consider too ugly to use.

The first set I got with the colour change was 4500 Snowspeeder and I remember it to this day. The Lego looked cleaner. Good decision to change the colours.

Oh yeah, I remember. It wasn't a very big deal to me, but I remember seeing the uproar and some of the fallout online. Same with the introduction of fleshie faces that happened around the same time, there were people painting over the pink faces with yellow Sharpie to make them match.

I've got old grey and bley both in my loose parts. Unless I'm rebuilding an old set or want a clean, unified look for a build, I don't worry much about which one I use.

I first noticed when I came out of my dark ages which was probably around 2012 and then looked at my old pieces. When I stopped playing with Lego around 1984, there wasn't actually that much grey around; I was never much into classic space so it was mainly train track pieces where the change looked less obvious anyway. I agree that old grey colours look dirty and aged in comparison, although in my case, that just could be because they were!

I still think that old grey looks better. At the time I was pretty dissatisfied as well :-) Nowadays I don’t care about new grey in new sets, the only problem I have that it’s not possible to combine old castle wall pieces with new grey bricks. Old and new grey next to each other look terrible, and I still like old castle walls a lot.

Solution: Lego should release castle wall pieces in new grey :-)

At that point I was 33 years into a 44 year dark age and wasn't even aware that Lego was still being made!

I like both colors. I was very happy last year when I managed to buy MiSB 10030 UCS Star Destroyer at a favorable price. It turned out to be the first edition in old gray and it looks great.

Ha! I had only just been born, so I guess I don't have much of a problem with that. I have some old grey parts from my Dad's collection (or had at least), and bluish-grey is certainly the better option.

I was just getting into the scene at the time. I’d started re-collecting LEGO via Star Wars in 1999. My collection wasn’t that large, though.

I still have all my old gray pieces in a large box. I remember it being very annoying at the time because the change took place across a range. The World City ICE train had several different sets, and some were old gray and some had the new bleys. I wanted a whole consist so I bought several sets, including extra locomotives.

That was an incredibly asinine decision LEGO could have avoided entirely. Still, I do think the new colors look better.

One of the times when being colour-blind is a blessing! I had not sorted my bricks back then, so when I did, it would be pretty difficult to separate the colours for certain, so I still bundle old Light Grey and 'new' Medium Stone Grey into one set of colour boxes. It doesn't matter to me when building old stone castles etc - they need a variation of colour in my view.
Old Dark Grey, which seems browny to me, is easier to separate from 'new' Dark Stone Grey and so I have!
Don't even start me on dark brown and reddish brown when it comes to instruction books...

@Binnekamp said:
"That said... MAN I hate this change. Old sets I get second hand often have a mix and when I buy parts in bulk I will have to find out which part is which color myself. And the colors are SO FREAKING SIMILAR. "

I often sell off bulk used LEGO by the kilo, typically parts that are worth very little or ones that are big/heavy and also worth little so not worth selling on bricklink. It is fun doing a handful of old greys, a handful of new greys and give them a swirl.

Shouldn't joke articles be reserved for April 1st? :)

I was very young at the time, more in my Duplo age. It did mean I had some of the old greys in my Hand-me-down Lego. But I do think it was the right choice as the new colours are far more versatile.

I have great difficulty telling old light grey and new light grey apart, especially if the new light grey have yellowed a bit. I'm on the fence about the decision to change, it probably adds to my nostalgia for the older sets knowing that they came in colours that are now obsolete, but it does make sorting bulk lots less easy if old pieces are mixed in with newer ones.

There's a guy on reddit that makes realistic MOC walls and buildings mixing new bricks, light damaged bricks and old/new colors and it's pretty clever.

I was in my 20s going to raves every weekend and going on dates most week nights; LEGO was the furthest thing from my mind. I have some of my childhood sets from the 80s, whatever's left of them anyway, in a bin in my attic now. But I didn't start buying sets again until around 2017, so I don't think I've ever seen new and old pieces together, at least in person.

Old grays look great when mixed with new if you are making a cliff, or run down castle.

My dark ages made the switch easier, although it was shocking to realize my old sets were not damaged but rather were just old shades of colors. The old pink being abandoned was likewise a shocker to me when I put the colors together. The color change brought me online to understand what was happening, and I discovered this site and Bricklink for the first time.

@MusiMus said:
"I like both colors. I was very happy last year when I managed to buy MiSB 10030 UCS Star Destroyer at a favorable price. It turned out to be the first edition in old gray and it looks great."
Lucky. That's my favorite LEGO set, and I saved up my allowance for years to get it just after retirement in 2008, and then it was the blue grays. There's not even a separate inventory on BrickLink, they just list the old gray colors, so if there's anything exclusive to it that was more commonly in bluish gray, it's not properly catalogued. And I often wonder what that set would look like over the past 15 years if I had gotten the original gray version.

I want to talk about the transition from brown to reddish brown. I miss the brown. I really do. I like the darker color. Yes, the reddish brown is a rich color, but it’s OK. It has sometimes annoyed me because it has too much of that red tint. And the problem with the reddish brown is that it breaks. Am I the only the one that has experienced this? I’ve had numerous bricks of different types break in that color. It just seems brittle to me.

I’ve always stored them both together, and the new greys look better in my opinion, dark grey especially. With so many castle and space sets from my youth this colour family is definitely well represented in my collection!

I don’t mind the mismatch in either MOCs or rebuilt sets since I’ve always interpreted them as ‘rock’ or ‘metal’, so colour variation gives those sets more character. Mind you, I’m not a fan of monochromatic triangles, so I don’t think I’m that demographic!

@MusiMus said:
"I like both colors. I was very happy last year when I managed to buy MiSB 10030 UCS Star Destroyer at a favorable price. It turned out to be the first edition in old gray and it looks great."

I ended up getting 10030 and it was the new grey and it was a surprise... i do like mixing greys especially in sets like the Millenium Falcon which helped to make it more like a "piece of junk" that was cobbled together in spots...

The main problem I have with all this (still to this day) is: from time to time, I will get back to one of my old set and try to bring it back to its former glory (replacing parts that have been 'chewed' too much, faded or broken). With old grey it is very difficult, you have to go to Bricklink, find someone selling old grey, and then trying getting 'like new' parts and people seems to have a very different version than me of what qualify as 'like new'. It is the same problem you will have if you try replacing round 1x1 bricks, they did not have holes initially. Also a problem for former Technic parts.

My old sets are segregated from the new ones and I have no qualms building with the new colours. I do not build castles but I like it when moccers use old and new greys for effect.

I was in my dark age at the time, so missed the whole kerfuffle.

I was but a child, but I still remember the Great Color Swap of 2003, and the mortal wounding of 9v trains in 2006 (it limped on another year before succumbing to it's injuries) like they were yesterday.

@LuvsLEGO_Cool_J said:
"I want to talk about the transition from brown to reddish brown. I miss the brown. I really do. I like the darker color. Yes, the reddish brown is a rich color, but it’s OK. It has sometimes annoyed me because it has too much of that red tint. And the problem with the reddish brown is that it breaks. Am I the only the one that has experienced this? I’ve had numerous bricks of different types break in that color. It just seems brittle to me."

The old brown color is just as brittle. I have several parts that are too expensive to replace that have shattered in my hand as I tried to take apart a MOC that used them.

Supposedly the brittleness was solved for the new reddish brown. I haven't had nearly as many of those break on me as dark red, so I have no reason to doubt that.

Ohh, the BLEY fiasco of 2004, when the world stopped…

I followed the development with some amusement but for me: the more colours, the better. Especially for Space Ships I support George Lucas’ look and view of a used universe.

I was a kid at the time. I'd had a bunch of the original wave of Star Wars sets, with the original gray colors, as well as Adventurers and UFO, so when I got 4753 I wondered if something was wrong with my eyes...until I held its parts next to some of the others in my collection, and no, the color really had changed!

I like both versions of light and dark grey.
The change happened during my dark ages, and all of the parts from my childhood sets are stored in different containers from the new ones anyway, so there's no problem there either.

Funnily enough, when BlueBrixx released the set of the famous St. Michael's Church of Hamburg, most of the pieces for the clock tower were produced in old dark grey because that colour much more closely matches the source material.

(For reference: https://www.bluebrixx.com/en/bluebrixxspecials/104370/Hamburger-Michel-BlueBrixx-Pro)

So there are now versions of many modern pieces in old dark grey that would never be available in that colour from LEGO themselves.

@J0rgen said:
"I was ten in 2004, and mainly collected Harry Potter that year, but it felt like a lot at once: Flesh coloured minifigures, new school uniforms and Hogwarts (in both the films and the sets) and new brown and grey bricks. I agree that it renders the old pieces kind of useless, apart from the sets they came in, and I've never really decided what to do about my small collection of old bricks, which are currently in my parents basement."

I was about to say the exact same thing. I was also 10, and I was only collecting Harry Potter at the time. Once I got over the initial shock of all the changes happening at once, I was excited about the newness of it. I had no idea the change had caused such a massive uproar until just now. I always assumed that the change was spurred by cost cutting, like it was cheaper to produce the new colors.

Only the slight condescending tone when referring to the new colours, and the term 'bley' annoyed me. (And not at the time, just it still going on today...)
Generally I keep the old sets and pieces separate, so it's not an issue for me, even when I have old and new sets next to each other on display - like the 5571-1 Black Cat and 42107 Ducati I have on the shelves behind my desk.

What did bother me was the discolouration of my 10219 Maersk Train, which was my own fault for leaving it on a windowsill, then putting it away in a lightless attic box! Imagine my horror when I pulled it out some years later to find some, but not all of the blue and grey parts had changed colour. Must try the oxiclean / UV light trick on the discoloured pieces, but I think some of the pieces only partially discoloured...

I moved across states between high school and college around that time, with the old grays in my childhood sets back home and then the new greys in my modern collection with me, so I haven't experienced a lot of seeing the two together. I think I only learned much later that a change even happened.

I have seen some mocs that use the color change to their advantage, making use of both shades in castle walls or rock formations to give more or an aged look, and it looks pretty good.

The difference in colour could add a nice texture for cliffs, rocks etc

Huh, I bought the new grey 10030 from its original owner across the province and picked it up from the post office yesterday, so I now have both colours of the set.

In my personal experience, I had childhood LEGO but zero grey or brown pieces so I discovered there were old colours AFTER starting to buy LEGO for me and my kids in 2016. As I prefer the older sets, this corresponds to my preferring the older colours as well.

I noticed it along with the change to using more true-to-life skin tones in licensed themes. At the time my interest in the hobby was naturally waning as I focused more on school and other activities, and didn’t truly realize the impact of the change until I came back to the hobby 5 years later. I am grateful that the AFOL community keeps the distinction so when I need to buy pieces sto complete older sets, I can make sure I am getting the “period-accurate” color.

As a kid, I was completely blind to the difference between light grey and light bluish grey (and even now I have trouble telling them apart in the very tiny pieces like technic bushes): and never was this more apparent to me than when a few weeks ago I got out my then-disassembled 6494 Mystic Mountain Time Lab to rebuild it and found that it now contained an awkward mixture of both shades from the time when its parts had been mixed in with my general collection of pieces. The same was true for the gears of my Bionicle classic Toa a while ago, and I expect I'll find the same when I get to rebuilding my 6090 Royal Knights' Castle, too.

...in that vein I feel sorry for whoever bought my 8799 Knights' Castle Wall from me back when I was downsizing my Lego collection, because that one INEVITABLY suffered the same issue as it has to be the source of most of the light bluish grey pieces that infiltrated the Time Lab!

I found it easier to tell the difference in the Dark Greys: being deep into Bionicle at the time, I only had to compare the sockets from any of the Toa Metru with those from 8581 Kopeke to notice the variance... although at the time I assumed it was just a new colour for the story shift to Metru Nui, in the same way that all the fire character sets from that point on were dark red rather than standard red, to suit the more industrial setting and didn't realise that the old version was gone for good.

I don't recall it ever bothering me, though... although I obviously didn't have an AFOL's perspective at the time. And when I did build my own stuff I would do so without regard for colour scheme, so I'm really not the most qualified person to give an opinion xD

That said, it is mildly frustrating when you buy a used lot that spans both sides of the colour change, and you have to figure out, for every single grey piece, whether it's new or old grey! That was not the most fun part of sorting last year's lot, I can tell you!

@Pollywanna said:
"I was 9 at the time and it still bothers me, part of the whole Lego ethos is that the parts are all interchangeable and connetctable, a cohesive system, not just across ranges but across time too. The change was a big dividing line, and it comes up whenever you want to use some elements that were never made in the bluish greys, which is a fair few because 2003-2004 was a big year for change, dropping older styles of hinges and wedge plates, introducing lots of curves and a whole new aesthetic for the brand. It was a really big mistake in my eyes, one that still causes consternation whenever I'm moc'ing. I can seamlessly integrate parts from 50 years ago in a variety of colours, except these three. It's really not good."

Colors are constantly changing. Dark red had fluctuations since its introduction that continued until about 2019. Yellow has issues with reaching a consistent change since 2009. Every yellow piece since 2009 is far milkier than older counterparts. All transparent shades have gotten milkier since 2019. I have seen enough simple red bricks to know that the shade is getting milkier with time unrelated to yellowing or ageing. And of course all parts produced in China have had the milkiest shades ever produced making nearly all the unglued magnet figures and many CMFs from 2009-2013 very noticeable. I will refrain from going into detail how China Lego bricks like Palpatine Throne Rooms new Luke hair and the new double mold Indiana Jones hat have completely different shine to their material than the bricks in the sets they come with.

I think the new grays work better for metal (not only SPACESHIPS! but things like weapons and tools) and the old grays work better for natural things like some animals. Stone can be either or both, depending on how much metal content you picture the stone having.

@ZeroGravitas said:
"Only the slight condescending tone when referring to the new colours, and the term 'bley' annoyed me. (And not at the time, just it still going on today...)"
I know, it sounds like an expression of disgust. Is it a contraction of "blue grey" or "blah grey?"

@Pollywanna said:
"... I can seamlessly integrate parts from 50 years ago in a variety of colours, except these three. It's really not good."

And to a lesser extent Old Pink and Old Purple.

And some would say Old Dark Red, with clear distinction coming from the same era--if you bin the darker tones and brighter tones separately and put the bins next to each other, they look like completely different colors, as do, more recently, the distinctions between darker and lighter shades of Pearl Gold.

I was completely blindsided by this and tried to refund my 10030 set that I opened. I bought the ISD 10030 set in early 2003, then decided when it went on sale that i could use another in a display I was creating. I was horrified after I opened the "new" set to realize this version was full of BLEY!!! I called LEGO and tried to get a refund but since it was opened they couldn't do anything. Still annoyed that they just changed a major color like that without any warning.

@MisterBrickster said:
" @Zander said:
" @wiggy said:
"I’d be interested to know if many new sets at the time did have a mixture of say old grey and new light blueish greys in the same box, due to some elements not being manufactured in the newer colours yet?"
I could be mistaken but I don’t think there were any sets that accidentally mixed the old and new greys, and there were none that I know of that did it deliberately.

Some themes though, such as Star Wars, definitely did span both eras, so you could have one SW set that was older and made use of the older greys and a more recent set that used the newer shades. I don’t believe there were any sets that changed colours mid-production run and therefore there were two versions of the same set.
"

10030 definitely came in both old and new grey."
You’re right! I stand corrected. Not being a massive LEGO Star Wars fan and never having been into UCS sets, 10030 slipped under my radar.

white has also been changed. It is more "creamy" nowadays

Frankly I'm still mad about it. This was a completely moronic decision made for the wrong reasons and executed in the wrong way. Some thing that's going to get lost in comments is the major reason. Lego changed raw material suppliers a couple of years earlier. A few year before the color change they were pre-dyed raw material. When they changed supplier they started getting cheaper undyed ABS. Unsurprisingly they found maintaining constant color standards to be difficult. When combined with the unregulated color palette expansion of the 90s something needed to be done. The way in which the color palette was standardized is just as irrational as the unstandardized version. This also lead to several unintended consequences that were handled even worst. Can you say "brittle brown"?

For me the biggest issue is I am a huge Castle fan and have a large collection of classic Castle sets (pre-2004). I can either build something that's classic or modern. But you can't have a mix due the clash of colors. The dark gray vs dark blay is horrific. They bring out the worst of each other. Light gray vs light blay is near as bad.

A bit ironic that the old colours looked unappealing, dirty and faded, although that was not apparent until they were compared with the new ones when building Star Wars kits. I think Star Wars was one of the first films to show spacecraft as dirty and old, rather than pristine and clean.

I am probably the outlier here in that I don't quarantine my grays at all. Most of my use of gray is in old buildings, rocks, or spacecraft, and while I try to maintain color blocking with the grays, I find mixing in the dingier old gray shades make a structure look more weathered and lived-in. Of course, this does mean I have to do a lot of color coordination (and squinting) when I make something that does need to have only one shade of gray, but I also do a lot of color balancing for photography so at this point I'm used to torturing myself like that. I really ought to sort my gray parts at this point, though.

I do wish Lego would bring back the old brown and Paradisa pink. We refer to the old brown as "chocolate" brown and it has a quality to it that you can't get with the newer variations of brown.

I know I was bothered by it--I wouldn't say betrayed but I was definitely annoyed. A lot of ebay people would list their set an older set as complete despite having several parts swapped in for new grey. This lead to lots of annoying issues of having to order parts to replace for supposedly complete sets or push back on the seller (who most likely didn't even know there was a difference). In the end, I 100% agree it had to happen and we are all better for it, but boy were those painful times.

@Roebuck said:
"If I remember correctly on the Inside tour in 2019 on the fabric round one person asked about this. And they said the swap happened when they stopped getting Lego granulate pre-coloured to the factory and instead got them in a neutral colour they then coloured themself."

I don’t think I ever heard a definitive reason this happened. They seemed very reluctant to explain the change at the time. I posted an article on MaskofDestiny.com back then, about how I felt the three commonly accessible new colors (nobody cared about very-light-bley replacing very-light-grey), and I think I concluded that so many LEGO colors of that time had a warm tint to them that dark-bley clashed with pretty much every color except black, dark-blue, dark-purple, and maybe dark-green. Light-bley wasn’t quite so bad, except that it was hard for people to tell apart from light-grey. Reddish-brown was more readily embraced (and ironically betrayed us all). Best potential reason I could come up with at the time was that old greys look really aged under that bane of human eyesight, industrial cool-white fluorescent lighting that was so common in retail at the time. Only under store lighting did I prefer the bleys to the greys.

@AllenSmith:
Light-bley is so hard for many people to differentiate by eye, I’m not surprised that people have dumped the old parts. For a while, people were hoarding old greys and brown, in part because there wasn’t enough critical mass to make the new colors very useful outside of building stock sets (again, nobody cares about very-light-bley vs very-light-grey, because neither color is very common). As time passed, collections changed, and suddenly people did start dumping their old greys to fund purchases of bleys.

If someone is in a situation where they’re unsure if whether they have bleys or greys, best suggestion I have is to invest in daylight-spectrum bulbs (preferably LED, but CFL works in a pinch). The more natural range of light includes a broad spectrum of blue that really makes the bleys pop against greys.

I was around 12 at that point and feel like I adjusted to the new greys fairly well. I had plenty of the old greys, both from childhood sets and secondhand parts my dad got from eBay and yard sales, but I definitely preferred the look of the newer greys.

I love the new colors, and I noticed them even at a ripe 10 years old in 2004. That being said, I still occasionally find uses for the old colors and enjoy hunting them down as "rare pieces."

What really bothers me is that more parts have not been printed in "light stone grey". There was a strong use case for that color.

@Zander said:
" @wiggy said:
"I’d be interested to know if many new sets at the time did have a mixture of say old grey and new light blueish greys in the same box, due to some elements not being manufactured in the newer colours yet?"
I could be mistaken but I don’t think there were any sets that accidentally mixed the old and new greys, and there were none that I know of that did it deliberately."
Yes, sets in the transition era randomly came with parts in both colors, and they looked absolutely awful. I remember getting several copies of 3535 where the 1x6 tiles for the top of the picnic table were all mixtures of old and new brown. The fact that Lego shipped sets in this condition tells you a lot about the flippancy with which they approached this change—and I say that despite agreeing that the new colors are more aesthetically pleasing.

@Zander said:
" @Rob42 said:
"Same with the introduction of fleshie faces that happened around the same time, there were people painting over the pink faces with yellow Sharpie to make them match."
The grey switch didn’t bother me much either but the fleshies did. It was and is a betrayal of the brand. I’m a yellowist and always will be."
I feel the same on that one. I noticed Lego has started using flesh tones in their generic marketing images in the latest Shop at Home catalog, which I don't remember them doing before. They've also started testing the waters with non-licensed sets containing flesh colors. I'm very concerned that they are going to quit making yellow heads altogether, and I've been stockpiling them. The generic, otherworldly look of yellow figures is important for me in my MOCs.

@EvilTwin said
"I'm an adult, so trivial changes to the colour schemes in toys, even ones I play with myself, aren't really important to me. However the reactions show that exaggerated entitlement amongst adult obsessives isn't particularly new."
Perhaps you don't understand the significance because you keep all your sets individually separated? For MOC builders, this was a catastrophe, and called into question the future viability of the hobby itself. The cumulative compatibility of Lego parts over decades is one of the most important aspects of this hobby, because it provides a baseline of stability that allows you to grow in skill and scope of creation without being wealthy enough to buy a lifetime's supply of pieces every year. If Lego is going to randomly nullify the future building value of part of your collection every so often, then you would be far better off investing in a hobby where such concerns don't exist.

The stakes were even higher back then because Lego was teetering on the edge of bankruptcy due to a long series of decisions that demonstrated cluelessness about who their customer was. This was yet more evidence that Lego didn't understand its own product. It was very much an existential question.

As someone who collects vintage Lego, and builds old sets from spare Lego, the change to bluey-grey has been a nightmare for me.
Bluey-grey parts just look rubbish together with old grey, and is just wrong for vintage sets. So I've had to source lots of old grey parts just to ensure I can build vintage sets. I've also had many many Bricklink orders where the seller has (inadvertently in most cases - they are difficult to tell the difference in poor light) sent me bluey-grey instead of the old grey ordered, and purchased vintage sets that have bluey-grey parts substituted for old grey. Aaaargh!
For me, bluey-grey vs old grey are as different as blue vs red. Why did you do it, Lego???

(I'm sure the reason Lego made the change was commercial - i.e to save money)

It's crazy how long ago this was... I remember it, but it's been over half my life now. I still have both. I avoid mixing them in the same model (except for BURPS, in which case the more colors the merrier!), but occasionally I use the old grays instead of the new ones for a particular building or project. The Super Chief sets are some of my favorites from growing up/of all time, so I'll always be a place for the old grays alongside the new :) I have definitely become glad the change was made with the benefit of time, though.

I love the classic greys and brown. Highly coveted amongst AFOLs for sure. That said, I'm sure we've all adopted the new colors and welcomed them into our collections.

I'd argue that mixing old and light greys in the same model doesn't "look terrible" as the author subjectively points out. I think it's highly dependent on what you're building. If you're making a castle, the natural color difference between light and dark greys adds character and nuance to a castle, combatting the "big grey wall" syndrome. You could likely make a case with browns too, in the right situation.

In that context, it is beneficial to keep seeking out older colors, in my opinion.

Its interesting that this happened 1 year before Lego actually almost went bankrupt in 2005. It was due to customer dissatisfaction and I'm sure this change had a small part to play in it. Lego had lost its core focus and was producing elements that were so specific to a set that they didn't really work with the rest of the "system" and fans were not happy. Article below talks about how they rebuilt and refocused with a better blueprint for the future.

https://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/innovation-almost-bankrupted-lego-until-it-rebuilt-with-a-better-blueprint/

@AustinPowers said:
"Funnily enough, when BlueBrixx released the set of the famous St. Michael's Church of Hamburg, most of the pieces for the clock tower were produced in old dark grey because that colour much more closely matches the source material.

(For reference: https://www.bluebrixx.com/en/bluebrixxspecials/104370/Hamburger-Michel-BlueBrixx-Pro)"
Suddenly I see why Germans are feeling less love for the Lego brand. There are all sorts of beautiful models there. And they claim to be respecting IP rights. How is the part quality?

Honestly, the old colors should return and stay together with the current colors.

For me it was in my Lego dark ages. When I returned to the fandom I quickly noticed the change and it bothered me a lot back then.
I totally agree, in hindsight, that it was the right thing to do though. The new greys look way crisper.
Having said that, my LBG "pile" is still only 1/10 of the grey bricks I have in stock for MOC's. The rest is LG. But that's because I usually build things in the Classic Space style.

I would have been still playing with Duplo around this time. Looking back, I don't see why we can't have both. I think the different shades have their uses, and particularly brown I don't see what the problem was. The original brown looks more like wood which is good.

Furthermore, I don't see what's wrong with the Lego community complaining at the time. These aren't 'spoiled, obsessed adults', they are ordinary consumers rightfully annoyed by a random, major (and some would believe unnecessary) change to the product.
As the article says, and has been apparent with many of you quarantining your collections, the change in colour meant old pieces couldn't really be used with new pieces, which defeats the whole point of Lego.

It hurt then. It still hurts now. Eventually nobody at all will want any old grey or old brown. Will all those bricks be recycled? Or will they end up failing to rot in landfill, essentially forever? LEGO should acknowledge their responsibility, come up with a credible plan for trading in all this stuff, and recreate the retired molds so that classic space sets can be re-made in the new hues.

I wasn't that old (I was 11) but I was still annoyed at the colour change. Mostly because people on the internet were, I guess. It didn't affect my building much, as I didn't have that much old grey, and I was still many years before I had an adult budget to work with. and I focused my efforts on a different, much blacker colour.

I keep my greys separated, I like to use old grey every now and then, especially when I'm trying to replicate an old colour scheme.

But bad as this was, Lego has done something worse.

They have discontinued trans neon green in 2023 (Or so people tell me....)

I was travelling around the world and remained unaware of many things for several years.

@AllenSmith said:
" @AustinPowers said:
"Funnily enough, when BlueBrixx released the set of the famous St. Michael's Church of Hamburg, most of the pieces for the clock tower were produced in old dark grey because that colour much more closely matches the source material.

(For reference: https://www.bluebrixx.com/en/bluebrixxspecials/104370/Hamburger-Michel-BlueBrixx-Pro )"
Suddenly I see why Germans are feeling less love for the Lego brand. There are all sorts of beautiful models there. And they claim to be respecting IP rights. How is the part quality?"
Indeed. They hold the rights to several IPs, the most important of course being Star Trek.
They also have a lot of sets that are clearly based on well known subjects but are marketed as generic vehicles without an official licence. For example a lot of vehicles from TV shows and movies that were popular in Germany in the Seventies and Eighties (K.I.T.T., Magnum PI's Ferrari, A-Team Van, Spy who loved me Lotus Esprit, cars from Mr. Bean, The Fall Guy, Smokey and the Bandit, Cannonball Run, spaceships from Battlestar Galactica etc.)

Another large part of their lineup is trains. Complete trains, individual locos and wagons as well as accessory buildings and infrastructure (train sheds, stations, switching boxes, etc.)

In their early years the parts quality was hit and miss, but by now they have ironed out the kinks.
Most of their decorations are prints, and those imho are of far better quality than LEGO's (just like Cobi's). Especially on their Star Trek sets.

Did the new parts also have slightly more rounded studs?

I was actively collecting at the time of the change. I had been a full-fledged AFOL for about 3 years when "bley" hit the scene.

It wasn't a great feeling to realize that LEGO had implemented a change that would have such wide-reaching implications, but the good that came out of it was that they at least acknowledged the blind spot and seem to have learned from it.

After nearly 20 years of AFOL status, this color change probably remains one the biggest blips on the radar in terms of controversy, second only to the near bankruptcy of the company that was still a very recent memory at the time.

I don't have any in person, but old dark grey is very similar to sand blue, right?

I don't get the appeal of the old ones; they look extremely dirty and grimy compared to the new colors.

@AustinPowers said:
" @AllenSmith said:
" @AustinPowers said:
"Funnily enough, when BlueBrixx released the set of the famous St. Michael's Church of Hamburg, most of the pieces for the clock tower were produced in old dark grey because that colour much more closely matches the source material.

(For reference: https://www.bluebrixx.com/en/bluebrixxspecials/104370/Hamburger-Michel-BlueBrixx-Pro )"
Suddenly I see why Germans are feeling less love for the Lego brand. There are all sorts of beautiful models there. And they claim to be respecting IP rights. How is the part quality?"
Indeed. They hold the rights to several IPs, the most important of course being Star Trek.
They also have a lot of sets that are clearly based on well known subjects but are marketed as generic vehicles without an official licence. For example a lot of vehicles from TV shows and movies that were popular in Germany in the Seventies and Eighties (K.I.T.T., Magnum PI's Ferrari, A-Team Van, Spy who loved me Lotus Esprit, cars from Mr. Bean, The Fall Guy, Smokey and the Bandit, Cannonball Run, spaceships from Battlestar Galactica etc.)

Another large part of their lineup is trains. Complete trains, individual locos and wagons as well as accessory buildings and infrastructure (train sheds, stations, switching boxes, etc.)

In their early years the parts quality was hit and miss, but by now they have ironed out the kinks.
Most of their decorations are prints, and those imho are of far better quality than LEGO's (just like Cobi's). Especially on their Star Trek sets. "

I was considering giving BlueBrix a try because Lego nowadays does not produce parts in basic colours as much as before (lots of white, greys, black and gold but less of red, yellow and blue - the original ones - although with theme like Monkie Kids, it's getting better). I could get the 300 parts I need for 30 euros. The big problem is: BlueBrixx charges me 65 euros to send it to me - not going to happen.

I was in college, and I remember hearing a lot about New Gray and how it was a huge deal and ruining Lego forever and etc. And... that was my only awareness that anything had happened! I didn't have much in the way of old dark gray to begin with, mostly just BURPs and stuff, and it was a while before I got any new sets with light gray in them and a while longer before I tried doing anything else with those parts. When I finally realized there was new gray in my house (I think specifically from my little brother's 7257, which I've since "inherited") it was sort of an "oh yeah, I remember hearing about that" moment.

Those parts are still quarantined!! 20years later...

Not only are the color different, but pre-2004 still have a more precious spot in my heart and I can't quite bring myself to blend old castle with new or old pirates with new, etc... I'm still afraid too much nostalgia will get lost/diluted... but I didn't realise it fits well (not perfectly) with the change in grays..
I don't hate any of the colors, but somehow it's fitting... the colors most likely to yellow are the colors most likely to BE yellow...

I was super annoyed at the time. I had a big collection of classic space and classic castle and to not be able to get new pieces that matched ... ugh. Thankfully my copy of 10030 Imperial Star Destroyer was from the initial production run in all old grey bricks.

Over time my collection of new greys got big enough to be usable for building. I use both new and old now (but usually avoid mixing them, although occasionally it can be useful to have both) but it's annoying not to have new pieces in the old colors and vice-versa.

I don't mind the new greys so much anymore. And yeah, the old dark grey sucked. It was way too yellow (and I always found it too yellow, even before the new greys came out). But I liked the old light grey.

But while I can accept the new bluish greys, I'm still greatly annoyed by them dropping old brown and replacing it with reddish-brown. Reddish-brown is a useful color (and looks good on a lot of animals) but the old brown was much better for trees and a lot of architectural elements. I wish they'd kept the old brown in production alongside reddish brown.

@wiggy:
The one set that I know was significantly impacted is 10030. When the set debuted in 2002, all of the parts were in old greys. It stayed in production for a few years, though, so once 2004 hit, they basically ran through existing stock of old greys before replacing them with new bleys. During the waning days of production, a considerable portion of the set would come in bley, and the only way to know for sure what you'd find when you opened the box was to know that the set had hit shelves _before_ the color change occured. Late sets had enough of a balanced mix that it reportedly played into the patchwork hull effect, but mid-run sets were only a couple parts had been switched probably looked really bad.

@Anonym:
At the time, they claimed they'd focus-grouped the new colors, and they tested better. But even if that's true, the way the focus group is organized can taint the results. In the case of the greys, the way the focus groups were _lit_ could taint the results. Old greys look particularly bad under certain lighting conditions, and better under others.

@Rob42 said:
"Oh yeah, I remember. It wasn't a very big deal to me, but I remember seeing the uproar and some of the fallout online. Same with the introduction of fleshie faces that happened around the same time, there were people painting over the pink faces with yellow Sharpie to make them match."
Still do, and have gotten quite good at it...

@L_go:
Not only did they apologize, but they promised to never change a color like that again without first getting AFOL input on the matter. Of course, that doesn't prevent them from retiring one color in favor of another, but there's usually been enough of a transition period where both are available that you can't really point and yell, "J'Accuse...!" It's also important to remember that this occured shortly after the higher-ups within the company even learned that there _was_ an AFOL community. For a long time, there was this sheltered belief that adults didn't play with LEGO bricks, in spite of the fact that they had bowls of parts all over the company for adults to play with.

@LuvsLEGO_Cool_J:
You are not the only one who has experienced "brittle brown". Dark-red and dark-brown are both problem colors as well. Based on what one person here detailed, it seems ten years is about the gestation period for these parts to turn brittle. TLG has stated that they were aware of the problem, that they figured out what caused it, that they fixed it, and that they waited until they could be sure the fix had worked before making an announcement. I've been treating 2018 as the cutoff, and have been exclusively buying these colors from B&P over the secondary market.

@peterlmorris:
I've never heard of any old brown parts shattering.

@LusiferSam:
I have no idea if they changed suppliers or not, but that wouldn't really matter. At issue was the immense cost of sitting on rack upon rack of pallets filled with raw ABS pellets in the full range of colors, even if they only used them to make a handful of parts here or there. With Maersk-blue, they finally gave up and said they were going to produce the container ship until they ran out of pre-colored pellets and just _stop_. After that, there'd be no more parts produced in that color. Switching to in-line coloring allowed them to retain colors that might not have been cost-effective to produce in small quantities.

@AustinPowers:
So, they claim to be respecting IP rights, but then cheat this by offering look-alike models that capitalize on the popularity of a show or movie without obtaining the license. Additionally, they mimic the look of trademarked auto brands, again without any licensing. Apparently, they only mean they don't market these things with the film and TV logos attached. Except for stuff like BSG, where the entire design of the vehicle is IP to the core.

@AllenSmith said:
" @AustinPowers said:
"Funnily enough, when BlueBrixx released the set of the famous St. Michael's Church of Hamburg, most of the pieces for the clock tower were produced in old dark grey because that colour much more closely matches the source material.

(For reference: https://www.bluebrixx.com/en/bluebrixxspecials/104370/Hamburger-Michel-BlueBrixx-Pro)"
Suddenly I see why Germans are feeling less love for the Lego brand. There are all sorts of beautiful models there. And they claim to be respecting IP rights. How is the part quality?"

That may be the case for what they sell under their own brand, but a lot of the other products they stock are... dodgy, to say the least.
Just browsing through a retail store I spotted a number of sets leveraging heavily off Lego designs (notably whole lines aping the Old Fishing Store and Medieval Blacksmith) or skirting JUST BARELY around trademarks and such (notably a lot of car sets), a stolen MOC design (that automated garbage truck that made the rounds a couple years ago), and at least one blatant "Not Star Wars" set.
In other words, I can't say I'm getting an impression of respect or integrity from them.

@Rob42: they might appear dodgy when it comes to some of those third party sets they sell, but the sets they actually design themselves under their own brand seem fine to me.
And I don't think CBS would have awarded them the licence for Star Trek if they had doubts about their integrity.
Incidentally those Star Trek sets are highlights in their lineup, just like many of their trains, architecture and medieval sets. Also the German landmarks like the Frauenkirche in Dresden, the aforementioned St. Michael's Church in Hamburg, or their many castles like Neuschwanstein, Hohenzollern, Wartburg or Burg Eltz.
All of those are designed by their in-house team of designers. None of them are MOCs and all have the official licence of their respective owners.

The idea that the new colors somehow made the old ones "unusable" is completely ridiculous. "They're different, so you can't use them together!" The same could be said of any new color. "Bright orange isn't the same as bright red!" That doesn't make bright red obsolete.

@beige2 said:
"I don't have any in person, but old dark grey is very similar to sand blue, right?"

No, old dark grey has a brownish tint to it.

Im too young to have noticed the change when it happened, but I always thought the old pieces were just severely yellowed. It wasnt until years later when I inherited some unopened old mini star wars sets from a relative - and opened them - that I learned the pieces had always looked like that. Funnily enough I thought the same of old computers too, but once again, they really did just make them in that godawful beige colour intentionally.

In more recent years I've started to gain appreciation for the old colours. Especially for Star Wars, I think they're just a better match for the source material. Yes they look faded and yellowed and dirty but like... that's how things look in Star Wars, isnt it. I do also like the old colours in Bionicle as well. Though for most applications I still think the new greys are nicer, and Im not sure old brown has much of a place anywhere.

@560heliport said:
"The idea that the new colors somehow made the old ones "unusable" is completely ridiculous. "They're different, so you can't use them together!" The same could be said of any new color. "Bright orange isn't the same as bright red!" That doesn't make bright red obsolete. "

No, but consider how it would be if they just stopped making red and the closest substitute was orange. New parts being produced in orange, but not in red. Old parts produced in red, but not orange. Nobody is saying the greys and bleys can't coexist, just that it's difficult to build in either without risking a situation where that _one_ part you need is in the other color, but several you need aren't.

The one instance I've run into where this could have been a problem was Mater. I needed two pieces that only came in old brown, but several newer parts that were introduced after reddish-brown went into production. But it's Mater. His rust doesn't really need to be of a uniform color. Besides, four of the parts form the driveshaft, so aren't really visible. The fifth is part of the engine, so really doesn't _need_ to match anything.

After sifting through some data earlier this year, I came to the realization that LEGO had made some interesting choices during the transition.

If you browse through part numbers between 4210600 and 4211900, you’ll notice that they’re all the newer colors introduced in 2004. Every single Dark Stone Grey, Medium Stone Grey, and Reddish Brown part in that range also exists in the older colors. The rule was that if the part ID was still current in the outgoing color, the part would receive a new ID in the newer color.

@MisterBrickster said:
" @Zander said:
" @wiggy said:
"I’d be interested to know if many new sets at the time did have a mixture of say old grey and new light blueish greys in the same box, due to some elements not being manufactured in the newer colours yet?"
I could be mistaken but I don’t think there were any sets that accidentally mixed the old and new greys, and there were none that I know of that did it deliberately.

Some themes though, such as Star Wars, definitely did span both eras, so you could have one SW set that was older and made use of the older greys and a more recent set that used the newer shades. I don’t believe there were any sets that changed colours mid-production run and therefore there were two versions of the same set.
"

10030 definitely came in both old and new grey."

Some came with a mix of both. Mine was mostly old grey but about half of the 4211450: TOOTHED BAR M=1, Z=10 were in the new bluish grey instead.

I wasn't buying Lego at the time, and it's hard for me to get worked up about it now.
That said, I can imagine if they pulled a similar switch today, swapping white for "cold white" or something that was in theory a better formulation, more resistant to yellowing, it would be annoying to suddenly have a load of white bricks that didn't match....
Generally though, I also accept minor colour variations in blocks that are supposed be the same colour - such as sand green - that I see a lot of annoyance about in comments here. I think that compared to the Lego of my childhood, there are *so many* colours now that it's hard to be a purist on every colour perfectly matching.

@Brick_Master said:
"Generally though, I also accept minor colour variations in blocks that are supposed be the same colour - such as sand green - that I see a lot of annoyance about in comments here. I think that compared to the Lego of my childhood, there are *so many* colours now that it's hard to be a purist on every colour perfectly matching. "
Why?
When I look at the sets from my childhood I find zero colour inconsistencies (or variations as you call it). Same even with the sets from my uncle's childhood from the 1960s. Sure, those have other quality issues such as warping, but at least the colours were consistent.
The whole colour inconsistency problem started when LEGO moved to a cheaper way of producing colours. Sure, they now have tons of different colours, but I for one would rather have fewer colours of excellent quality, like in my childhood, than so many but with all the issues we experience. Especially since LEGO always claims to be quality leader, which by now is a dubious claim to say the least.

Still too emotional to talk about it. >_<

I thought it was a mistake and I still think it was a mistake, mostly because of backward (in)compatibility.

It's irrelevant if I like the new colors more than the old ones (which I do) and I too would prefer a whiter white (and that color was in the roll out to change as well, before AFOL's wrath shaked LEGO's headquarters).

Backwards compatibility is the biggest LEGO strength for me.

@AllenSmitn, The discontinuation of yellow heads and hands would be a huge issue for me as I would never switch to fleshies. But I don’t think it will ever come to that for a couple of reasons:
First, yellow-skinned minifigures are too much part of the LEGO brand image. They are too bound up with what consumers associate LEGO with. They also help to differentiate LEGO from other brands such as Playmobil.
Second, LEGO’s fastest growing market is China/Chinese sphere of influence countries where LEGO is investing in heavily to establish itself. That market is not racially diverse, so a flesh-tone set that appeals there will not resonate with, say, US audiences. The reverse is also true: sets aimed at racially diverse countries like the US won’t appeal to Chinese markets. The only workaround is to take real-world skin tones out of the equation and that means using yellow.

Ok a comment reminded me, I have more of a problem with the loss of old brown!

@lordofthebricks614:
They appear to have had a policy shift at some point. Back when minifigs were introduced, they came out with the first clip plate, which holds stuff in a vertical orientation. Within a few years, they’d revised the mold twice to make the clip stronger, and the Type III version lasted a few decades until they started the mass conversion to C-clips. I opened a sealed copy of 40076, and I found a pair of dark-bley clip plates. One was the new Type IV, with the C-clip. The other was a Type II, produced on a mold that should have been destroyed two decades before dark-bley was even introduced.

The issue seems to be that Type I, Type II, and Type III all shared a single design number, so unless someone actually inspected the mold cavities, or the first few parts off the production run, they’d get cataloged as the same mold and someone like me could pull one out of a set without anyone at the factory even realizing what happened. With the Type IV, they changed the design number for the first time, so as far as their mold database is concerned, it’s a completely different part.

I think Bag End may have been one of the sets that forced this issue. They altered the 1x6x2 arch in a way that makes the large round window impossible to build correctly, right around the time that set was released. So, every copy of that set needed the older, about-to-retire version, which is impossible to guarantee if the two versions share a single design number.

I was a child when this happened. I remember noticing the difference, but just assumed some bricks were dirtier or had more sun than others. I like it, mixing new and old grays together is a good way of getting subtle color variation in rocks.

@Rob42 said:
"Just browsing through a retail store I spotted a number of sets leveraging heavily off Lego designs (notably whole lines aping the Old Fishing Store and Medieval Blacksmith) or skirting JUST BARELY around trademarks and such (notably a lot of car sets), a stolen MOC design (that automated garbage truck that made the rounds a couple years ago), and at least one blatant "Not Star Wars" set.
In other words, I can't say I'm getting an impression of respect or integrity from them."

The Old Fishing Store was an Ideas set. That line "aping" the Old Fishing Store is composed entirely of the original designs of the Old Fishing Store's fan designer, Robert Bontenbal, aka RA-MT Brick Design. Lego passed on producing more sets in the style, so they have no further rights to assert other than over exact clones of 21310. BlueBrixx claims those sets are "Authorized by: RA-MT Brick Design", and there are news articles online indicating that is indeed the case. So this case, it looks like the creator was correctly compensated for his design.

I haven't tried figuring out any others beyond Star Trek, which they definitely got a license for.

Cars are an interesting case. Lego used to have a large line of HO-scale cars cloning real-world designs that lasted until 1970. I wonder if it was licensed?

Once upon a time, I'm pretty sure model companies made models of real-word objects with impunity. The world of model railroading would probably have been stillborn if every locomotive manufacturer and road insisted on a big fat cut. I know several railroads have been trying to assert IP rights over models in recent years, and they aren't creating goodwill in the process. I have no idea what the actual law is, but I can tell you if I were a legislator, I would support objects lapsing into the public domain for modelling purposes quickly.

@AllenSmith:
I know that once Old Fishing Store got accepted, all other harbor buildings of that style were banned from the program (Ideas, not Themes), but putting a project on the site gives them some sort of refusal period where you can’t shop it around to other brands, I believe. Complicating this, they had that Bricklink program where rejected Ideas projects could get a second chance at production (albeit insanely expensive, and very limited runs). I believe this was the designer whose second chance project got summarily delisted near the end of the backer period, and what I remember hearing is that the designer did get caught cutting a deal with a competing brand before their exclusivity period ran out.

Was in a dark age when the switch occurred. Did not return until 2015 and noticed everything looked cleaner and crisper. Still have some old figs and parts in that old grey and they look so brittle by comparison. The new range of colors just makes LEGO feel much more alive so the change was good imo.

@AustinPowers said:
" @Brick_Master said:
"Generally though, I also accept minor colour variations in blocks that are supposed be the same colour - such as sand green - that I see a lot of annoyance about in comments here. I think that compared to the Lego of my childhood, there are *so many* colours now that it's hard to be a purist on every colour perfectly matching. "
Why?
When I look at the sets from my childhood I find zero colour inconsistencies (or variations as you call it). Same even with the sets from my uncle's childhood from the 1960s. Sure, those have other quality issues such as warping, but at least the colours were consistent.
The whole colour inconsistency problem started when LEGO moved to a cheaper way of producing colours. Sure, they now have tons of different colours, but I for one would rather have fewer colours of excellent quality, like in my childhood, than so many but with all the issues we experience. Especially since LEGO always claims to be quality leader, which by now is a dubious claim to say the least. "

... because honestly, I don't really care that much :)

I appreciate that other people disagree, but minor colour variations in products are not something I can get worked up about. I find it hard to think of any other brand where I can expect (or ask for) colours on a product bought today to match colours on a product I'd bought even 5 years ago. I also expect colours to change a bit over time (I don't keep anything locked away in a lightless room) - and i don't really think Lego is any different from, say, book covers, or fabrics, or any other toys.

Build quality of bricks is different, I would be annoyed if I found bricks to be more fragile today than 20 years ago. But except for the dark brown issue, I find the build quality of modern Lego to be fine - I'm not saying I don't believe the people who have found quality issues, I just haven't experienced it myself.

Personally, rather than try and get every colour 100% consistent, I'd rather Lego push the envelope a bit when it comes to dual molding and printing techniques - I'd much rather have edge to edge printing on minifigure torsos and legs, for example.

This is all just my opinion, I appreciate others may disagree.....

@Brick_Master : while I agree that colours can change over time due to various external factors, this doesn't mean that one should have to expect colour variations on new products, especially to the extent that has become common on LEGO products in recent years.
I mean, even on a single brand-new set, pieces that should be the same colour can vary widely. Just look at colours like lime, dark red, bright light blue or dark tan, to name but the worst offenders I have found in recently built sets. Hell, even white is widely inconsistent these days.
Also it is not unreasonable to expect a high quality level at premium prices.

Almost none of our sets from alternative brick manufaturers have such issues (even though they all cost a fraction of what our LEGO sets cost), nor our Playmobil sets, or even completely different plastic items like the light switches in our house that I bought over the course of several years.

As for print quality, I agree with you that LEGO should try to do (much) better, again following the examples set by the (often much cheaper) competition. It's really sad that companies like Cobi, BlueBrixx, or even name- and shameless minifig cloning companies from China can do what LEGO can't - like consistent white on dark printing, perfectly matching prints across several parts, leg back printing, etc.

Just like two 1x2 plates, LEGO and change has always been inseparable. For example, they were making wooden household items as any respectable company would, but suddenly and unexpectedly they switched to injection molded plastic bricks. The horror!!! Hordes of disappointed customers were frantically selling their wooden toys on DuckLink.

I like the new colors and using them exclusively in MOCs, unless a part does not exist in the new color. I keep old-color parts as spares, in case I need them to complete an old set.

In fact, I think there are some changes that are far worse than the infamous color change. For example, when they replaced the 9V train tracks with non-conductive ones. Now that was a train wreck, pun intended.

Still, the color change inconveniences me all the time, but not more significantly than any other change. Unfortunately, I like my used LEGO sets to be complete with the right parts. I often replace damaged or missing parts with newly manufactured ones. It does not bother me if a set from the 1970s has parts from the 2020s, as long as they are the same color and design. Mold variations and color changes makes this unnecessarily challenging and/or prohibitively expensive at times.

Another annoying aspect of the color change is how close the old light gray and the new light gray are. I have trouble telling them apart unless under optimal lighting conditions. I have some parts that are in-between old and new gray. I call them Light Whateverish Gray.

@Akos said:
"Just like two 1x2 plates, LEGO and change has always been inseparable. For example, they were making wooden household items as any respectable company would, but suddenly and unexpectedly they switched to injection molded plastic bricks. The horror!!! Hordes of disappointed customers were frantically selling their wooden toys on DuckLink.

I like the new colors and using them exclusively in MOCs, unless a part does not exist in the new color. I keep old-color parts as spares, in case I need them to complete an old set.

In fact, I think there are some changes that are far worse than the infamous color change. For example, when they replaced the 9V train tracks with non-conductive ones. Now that was a train wreck, pun intended.

Still, the color change inconveniences me all the time, but not more significantly than any other change. Unfortunately, I like my used LEGO sets to be complete with the right parts. I often replace damaged or missing parts with newly manufactured ones. It does not bother me if a set from the 1970s has parts from the 2020s, as long as they are the same color and design. Mold variations and color changes makes this unnecessarily challenging and/or prohibitively expensive at times.

Another annoying aspect of the color change is how close the old light gray and the new light gray are. I have trouble telling them apart unless under optimal lighting conditions. I have some parts that are in-between old and new gray. I call them Light Whateverish Gray."

I agree the change to non - powered rail tracks - so you could no longer extend your existing system - was a total betrayal of all of us who had the existing train system sets and mocs that used that system. Probably much worse than the colour change that is the subject of these comments. I remember Lego trying to justify it on cost grounds at the time - yet having to buy extra stuff to get back to powered trains was more costly! They also changed the colour of the tracks as per this article. The new trains of which I have none will run on the old track, but the old trains of which I have several cannot run on the new unpowered track - now that's annoying!

@Monty:
The 9v rails were incredibly expensive compared to RC track. There are RC track pieces that they’ve never done in 9v because of the complexity involved, so they certainly wouldn’t be inclined to solve those problems for not-9v trains.

The color change was handled by a different department, and once implemented was simply unavoidable for all ongoing themes. The fact that these two events were staggered is quite unfortunate, as it resulted in a tiny amount of dark-grey RC track that’s not fully compatible with either dark-grey 9v or dark-bley RC.

@Japanbuilder said:
"Was in a dark age when the switch occurred. Did not return until 2015 and noticed everything looked cleaner and crisper. Still have some old figs and parts in that old grey and they look so brittle by comparison. The new range of colors just makes LEGO feel much more alive so the change was good imo. "

Same hear. Looking back at my old bricks, they just look old now. Also the moulds look much more pricise nowadays. And you can almost get any old brick in the new colours.

@EstragonHelmer said:
"I was 12 at the time, so didn't much care. But yes, I actively avoid the old colours now, unless it's an old set I want to keep as a set."

I was 1 at the time (not to make you feel old) so the old colors are a sort of "lost age" that lay forever just beyond my grasp. I think of the old Star Wars video games, I think of the old themes, of course I never think about the transition period because the "new" colors are all I have ever known. I'm trying to build a "vintage" Star Wars MOC with the old colors though, as well as a few discontinued ones like Sand Red.

I don't like change so I was pretty upset at first. I have since become used to the new colors since there are plenty of pieces made in the new colors now and it hasn't affected the prices of the old sets. I have never liked the new brown though, the old brown was a far better color.