Pearsalls Color Chart

[Greenwell]

I scanned a Pearsalls Silk Color Chart and thought I would share it with you. These charts used to sell for just a few dollars but are now almost impossible to find. I make no claims as to how close the colors are to the original but it should be useful as a guideline.

Pearsalls Chart.jpg (219.11 KiB) Viewed 117302 times

[Greenwell]

And here are the number/color references from a Veniards catalog.

Silk Numbers.jpg (71.66 KiB) Viewed 117301 times

[hankaye]

WiFlyfisher, Howdy;

I reckon the answer would be, "we are just supposed to know". that applies
only if we had several spools of each color.

The same question could be asked about women and new born children,...
we are just supposed to know ...

hank

[tie2fish]

Very nice find, John. Two spools of purple and is that a spool of ash in there?

[letumgo]

Thanks John.

When we had our first flymph gathering (June 2012), we took pictures of Pete Hidy's color chart, on which he had written the names for each of the colors of silk.





I remember seeing that he had also written the color & number on each of his wooden spools of silk.

[Greenwell]

Very nice! I think that your camera caught the colors better than my scanner.
When the spools were wooden, I would always write the color number on them. The plastic spools were much less satisfying then the wooden spools in many ways.

[letumgo]

Agreed. I've tried writing on the plastic spools with Sharpie markers, but unfortunately the writing tends to wear off after a while.

[Greenwell]

The Pete Hidy color references are useful in correlating his terminology to the Pearsalls names/numbers. I just transcribed them to a color list.

[daringduffer]

I keep that collection of 24 wooden spools, that Mikael Modig photographed for me, in a clear acrylic box for reference together with a Pearsalls reference chart just like the one John Shaner showed. Number 15 maroon is a much more interesting shade than comes through in the photos. It is very difficult to photograph all colours at the same time because they need different lighting to show their best. In the photo of my spools, the first four look washed out compared to how they look in real life.

I'm down to no more than about sixty spools by now, maybe even less...

dd

[Theroe]

Great, great photo- thank you John. I love the footnote on the left card : “larger spools may be wound to order”....... Who would’ve known ?????