Dale’s Daily Data: Crayons

October 15th - We’ve all played with crayons when we were growing up. They’re the invention of cousins Edwin Binney and Harold Smith who were in business together in New York City producing coal and paint products, especially red iron oxide paint used to paint barns across America. In the early 1900’s they developed a marking pencil made of a mixture of charcoal and oil. Not something you would want to give kids to play with. But a few years later they made a non-toxic form made with wax. Binney’s wife suggested the company name should be Crayola….a combination of the French word for chalk, Craie and ola from oily.

The first Crayola crayons sold for a nickel in 1903. It came in a box of eight colors: black, blue, brown, green, orange, purple, red and yellow. By 1957 there were 40 colors. Today there are more than 120 crayon colors including Outrageous Orange, Laser Lemon, Blizzard Blue, Mango Tango and Atomic Tangerine.

In all there are 23 reds, 20 greens, 19 blues, 16 purples, 14 oranges, 11 browns, 8 yellows, 2 grays, 2 coppers, 2 blacks, 1 white, 1 gold, 1 silver.

Crayon labels come in only 18 colors.

The best seller is the 24 count box of crayons.