Tamiya paint numbers

[Miko]

There are a lot of different hues of those colours, but XF 7 and XF 8 are also called Flat Red and Flat blue. It could well be that the extra shades you have listed were so close to existing colours that the range was rationalised and they were removed.

So why introduce them in the first place when those colour already exist in the range

It could also be that gaps in the numbering range were left in case Tamiya wanted to increase the general (which tend to be the lower numbers) as opposed to the specific (which tend to be higher numbers) paint range.

I made this point precisely in an earlier post

Another reason for rationalisation is that these “missing” colours were made for kits that are no longer in the range, so they were deleted. After all, Tamiya basically make their paint range to support their model kit range, not for use in general painting.

This seems unlikely in that there are kits in their range going back decades, so they would have had to deliberately decide to delete a range of kits based on they had colours in a very specific block of the paint range, and not one of the other kits which remain in range have a colour from that very specific block of colours

Missing numbers due to the formulation having heavy metal useage seems spurious, as these elements have been removed from general paint formulation for decades, on both cost and toxicity grounds. Anything removed from the carrier or matrix, as opposed to the pigment, would affect all colours, not just these few. Besides that, a lot of those colours listed will be using earth pigments which are still very widely used, so wouldn’t be affected by a pigment change requirement.
It’s something we will probably never know.

Agreed, seems highly unlikely, again that not one of the other paints should contain an offending ingredient and only a very specific block of consecutive numbers

When it comes down to it, the Tamiya paint range is excellent, but limited, and I for one wished they would expand it beyond their own kit requirements.

It's true, Tamiya are a benchmark for paint quality for me, although it seems unlikely they will expand their paint range to accommodate other kit manufacturer possibly to the detriment of the sales of their own kits