Sharpie Lim Ed 24 Pk Less Variety Than Expected By Joan Young on Jul 01, 2009 - Updated Oct 15, 2011

This pack of standard fine-tip Sharpies looks great, but there is very little difference between several of the colors.

This pack is supposed to be quite wonderful with five limited edition colors named “earl gray,” “blueberry,” “pomegranate grenade,” “hibiscus tea,” and “mocha.” Of course the colors of the pens are only identified by cap color, so it may be hard to determine which exact pens are the new colors.

Sharpie pens are really very good. They are permanent markers with a nice tip that holds up fairly well. In recent years they have added lots of colors to the old standard black, red, green and blue. This provides great options for making signs and some art projects. They are markers, so the ink will spread somewhat, of course. There is less spreading the more glazed the paper is. They will write on paper products, wood, glass, plastic, etc. (and walls and furniture... these are not for the small kids!)

I wanted to do some illustrations with background washes of watercolor and the details lined in with markers, so I thought that all the extra colors would be great. But there are a lot of the colors that are very much alike.

The sketch in the picture is nothing wonderful, but is an example of how the colors show and blend on plain computer paper. The other picture shows the 24 colors on the same paper. As you can see, a lot of them are very much alike.

I think that if you need to make a lot of signs this is a great buy at just over 83 cents each. If you want art markers with particular colors you will be better off going to an art supply store where individual markers in specific colors can be purchased. Of course those will be more expensive.