Never tried either, but I remember that the Lukas 1862 brand has been discussed here in the past with quite a few recommendations. They are a bit different in that they are made with beeswax in the mix. Hopefully there are still some Lukas users out there!

Don

Lukas are really good paints in my opinion, I like them just fine.
I intend to get some Charvins next time I go to the new Jerrys Artarama they opened near me in Wilm Del.

Here are some the Charvins I bought as well as some of their delightful grays.

The grays:

French Blue Violet, and Lagoon Blue:

Nancy http://nancyparkfineart.com
All human beings are dream beings. Dreaming ties all mankind together. - Jack Kerouac

I have a few tubes of Charvin that I bought several years ago. I haven’t used them very much or done direct comparisons with my other brands. I would hesitate to recommend them for two reasons- price and documentation.

price- They come in 20ml and 60ml tubes, rather than the usual 35, 37, or 40ml. Normally you should expect to see a price break for getting larger tubes, and they do have this. However, to get this price break you have to buy a tube that’s larger than a typical 35-40ml one and you end up spending more for it than you would for a normal size tube from another brand. Seems like a clever way of convincing people to spend more, considering the alternative is to get a tube that’s 20ml, around half that of other brands, for about the same price as another brand’s 35-40ml tube of the same color. Ignoring the super sale prices, Charvin’s ultramarines go for $19.39 for 60ml and $10.49 for 20ml. Even Old Holland’s 40ml ultramarine costs about the same as Charvin’s 20ml, and for the price of Charvin’s 60ml you could get 2 of Old Holland’s and have 80ml total.

documentation- There’s a lot of paints in this line, and a lot of them seem to simply be tints with white, but they don’t all list white in the pigments. I have a “naples yellow golden” that simply says PY42 on the tube. It’s clearly a mix of mars yellow and white. Both Jerry’s Artarama and Charvin’s online color chart say that it’s a mix of PY42 and PY35, but don’t mention white. Maybe they changed the formula, and I don’t remember if Jerry’s Artarama even listed the pigment information for Charvin back when I ordered this, but whatever the case this tube definitely has white in it but doesn’t list that. I also have an “indigo” that only has PB15/1 written on the tube, yet seems far too muted to be phthalo blue on its own. The pigment information online says it’s actually a mix of PB15:1, PV23RS, and PBk7. This is more believable to me than it being only PB15, as otherwise this indigo would be the dullest phthalo blue I’ve seen.

Lastly I’ll mention that I have a tube of “Indian yellow deep” that’s listed both on the tube and online as PY42. It appears to be a transparent yellow oxide, so I just now compared it with my other one from Blue Ridge. BR’s has a much darken masstone. Charvin’s is actually a good looking color, but seems much lighter than what I’ve seen in color charts from other brands, so I’m not sure if it’s just some odd variety of transparent yellow oxide or if they’ve added something to the paint. Charvin’s is also much more transparent. When tinted with about 50% titanium white Blue Ridge’s seems to be stronger. The amount that Charvin’s tint is lighter than Blue Ridge’s tint is greater than the original difference in masstone. It would seem that if this is a fair comparison of one brand’s TYO to what I think is another brand’s then Blue Ridge clearly has the stronger paint. When not on sale, Charvin’s normally $24.69 for 60ml and $13.49 for 20ml, while Blue Ridge’s 40ml is $9.00.

My own conclusion is that they’re tempting with so many colors, but that there’s absolutely no shortage of excellent paint out there in which you actually know what you’re getting without doubt and that has a better price per ml, so I won’t be getting more. My advise is to use any of the other brands known to have excellent paint, but if you do want Charvin then I’d start with a few of the series 1 colors and try them out without going on a spending spree right from the start.

I’m glad that a thread about Charvin paint is on wetcanvas.
I’ve always wondered about that brand and why it’s expensive. The size it comes in is so different from the rest of the industry.

As for pigments, like everyone above has said, that most of the tubes are mixtures and not single pigments. Which affects the chroma of subsequent mixes with other colors.

I have come to think that Charvin is made with the colors of the French Riviera pre-mixed. Sort of a matching color of what’s out there. Where artists pick what they want to paint then grab the corresponding color. That’s why the large range of colors. But that’s my opinion. I could be wrong.

I got a few colors to experiment with. I would love to hear more from those that have tried them.

Kal

Things seem to have changed. I thought it was art supply warehouse but that appears to be a single store in california and the site aswexpress.com is art supply wholesale. I don’t recognize either site, even though I ordered from an “asw” (the one associated with jerry’s) in the past and I have an old bookmark for a product on aswexpress. The prices you’re quoting seem to be member’s only, and membership is $79.95 a year ($59.95 right now). Their non member prices look like they’re the same as what I saw on jerry’s for non-sale prices. I don’t remember there being any sort of a membership thing way back when I ordered.

I have quite a collection of both Charvin and Lukas, and am at the point where I’m leery of buying a lot more of either.

Don’t get me wrong, they’re fine, they perform fine, the Lukas paints especially are a good deal. However, Lukas has driers in it (and I’m all about quick drying so I’m okay with that as a rule) but some Lukas paints I bought over a year ago are starting to show signs of stiffening up a bit. Not to the point of being unusable, they’re still “okay,” but I’m not stockpiling any of them for later if they’re just going to start to dry out. This only happens to some colors, but it’s enough to make me hesitate to get more. (I do get some of the Studio brand, because they are such a good deal when they’re on sale.)

The Charvins are nice and have some interesting colors, but I’ve had Jerry’s send me a few tubes that were already stiff in the tube. Not unusable, but STIFF. This happened with one or two other tubes. Even though I know I could return them and get an exchange, the odds of it happening again seem high, so why bother. Given the price of Charvins, I’d rather just get Blockx or something.

I’m not saying Charvins aren’t good, and I’m excited about the selection of colors, and there are a few colors I’ll probably re-order when I run out, but I’d rather stick with Blockx, Williamsburg, or one of the other popular brands from now on, because they don’t seem to have the problem of being so stiff right away. YMMV.