Recreating the Munsell crayon color spectrum

AbstractMunsell crayons were discontinued in 1944 but the concept of the Munsell color wheel is still a part of the Crayola Crayon Company to this day. We performed a set of measurements using an original set of Munsell crayons to see if they still hold their specification and how they compare to the entire available spectrum of the Crayola crayon family. The crayons were melted and measured using a spectrophotometer and the resulting spectra were compared using CIEDE2000. Using a conversion table, the CIELAB coordinates of each crayon were converted to Munsell specification and compared. The results of the experiment show that some Munsell crayons have a similar Crayola counterpart. It also showed that most of the Munsell crayons were not close to their original specifications.