I answered you by e-mail, John, but maybe it makes sense to post a response here too.

There are several problems in describing chip colors. One is that no two people see colors precisely the same way. The more significant problem, I think, is that the amount of use a chip has seen, and its exposure to dirt, skin oils, sunlight or even artificial light, alters the chip's original color.

I have an almost-unused example of this chip. It's clearly mustard. Of course, mustard is a variety of yellow, simply with more brown in it, and I can see that someone trying to simplify things might call it yellow. To me, though, that's not descriptive.

Your example has seen more use than mine, and has been darkened with age and handling. From the scan, I'd agree with you that the color looks more like a yellowish olive than a mustard. But that's not the chip's original color.

Some years ago Howard Herz proposed that CC&GTCC adopt a standardized color description method, using a color chart which philatelists (stamp collectors) have been using for some years. I thought the idea was a good one, but it went nowhere. And as this example indicates, there might well be several ways to describe the color of the same issue chip even if we used a standardized color chart, because various stages of wear and use would result in different observable colors.

-=Michael the Chipper=-