A Royal Purple in blue!!

[maroongem]

I recently picked up a lot of BAs that came from an ad I had placed in a local paper. Unfortunately, the machine that played these went to the local land fill years ago. The family did tell me that it was a floor model, and one can only speculate as to which model it was.
Anyway, I just went through them and found #29044 (Simon The Cellarer by Arthur Middleton), one of the Royal Purple Series, but in the late dark blue used on the BAs!
The first 6 in that series can be found in blue as well as they were of an earlier Concert series released in 1913 and were re-released in the Royal Purple line, but this was released in 1920, two years after the RPs began!
Anyone have a clue as to why this was blue and not purple as it should have been? I have others that precede this cylinder in the line but they are all colored purple as expected. This came in a standard late BA box but sans lid, so no way of knowing if the box was original to the record. The RPS had a very short run (1918-21), so perhaps this tune continued to be popular after they ceased production of the RPs? Did they run out of purple that day to color the celluloid?

Bill

[matty]

I've heard of the first 6 being originally available in blue, but never the later numbers.
My guess would be it was moulded after the purple series stopped in 1921. Perhaps they ran out of stock & had orders, so moulded a batch in blue?

[maroongem]

That's a good a guess as any. I wonder if Ron Dethlefson has any info on this oddity?
I'll get a pic up later today.

Bill