Spaghetti Legs 

My ‘83 Specialissima, like your second pic looks like the pearled turquoise. My ‘89 SLX was slightly lighter more like the shade on the left. I replaced it with another ‘88 or ‘89 SLX that was somewhat lighter with pearlescent finish (the one Doc painted hot purple).

Good luck.

xiaoman1 

Sea Foam or Pearl are close..IMHO, I don't think you would go wrong with either of them....the others are either too green or blue on my monitor.
Best, Ben
PS Pantone might get you closer..... https://www.pantone.com/color-finder

nlerner

gugie 

Pick one, any one.

Insist that it's the one and true Celeste to anyone that asks. Heck, volunteer the claim to total strangers.

Who's going to contradict you?

P!N20

79pmooney

This reminds me of what I did with my house. I was painting over stain. Two coats were going on. I wanted a reddish brown. I knew the house was going to take several 5 gal buckets. Bought a gallon of a standard color that was pretty close to my vision. Painted two adjacent upstairs outside walls with it. A day or two later, I caught the late afternoon sun on one of the faces. Way, way too red! Went back to Home Depot and had them add a few drops (now I now cannot remember what). Painted two more adjacent walls. No surprises but not there. A third try on two more walls. Nah but close. Fourth try - far from my original idea but yeah! Four years later I love it. Wouldn't have picked in a million years but for this trial and error. That and seeing them in the real light.

For a bike? If you are going to strip it anyway, you could first paint say the back with one celeste, the front with a another. (Small cans of auto paint hand brushed? Right over the original paint. You could just mask off the hardware. Voids between it and the new paint don't matter.) Take it out and ride it. See it in a bunch of different lights at different times of day. Not there yet? Go back to the auto store and try again. Paint on right over the old. Now you have had 4 different colors to look at in real conditions. Like one? By a bike's worth, strip all that old paint and go for it!

thinktubes 

Meanwhile, in the "lower", lower level ('89 SLX)...

Unca_Sam

I'll volunteer a vote for sea foam from the initial post.
The legend of celeste is that it represented the clear sky over Milano, or that it was born of blended surplus light blue and light gray paint so it could be a color besides black. I'm more attracted to the pale blue/green than the bluer and brighter shades. I also know it's not my bike and my opinion is worth less than the time I took to share it .

Why are so many barns painted red? Because red paint is cheap to produce, and hematite isn't subject to fading.

Andy_K 

Convincing other people is easy. Convincing myself is the trick. Have I told you my theory about using a coin flip to make decisions? While the coin is that in the air you realize which way you're hoping it lands and that's your decision. This one is too uncertain for a coin flip, but I'm hoping that if enough other people tell me which one I should choose I'll figure out which one I want.

Andy_K 

This is helpful for picturing what the bike will look like in my garage. @gugie can confirm this.

Andy_K 

I keep going back to the picture of your second SLX before Doc painted it. In my mind, that's the reference for what my bike would have looked like new. I didn't mention that Prismatic Powders also has a pearl version of the Sea Foam Green. I can't even see a difference with the swatches side by side, but maybe when the sun comes out in June it will become apparent. Anyway, I think now I have it narrowed down to four choices instead of three.

Andy_K 

So in the spirit of the history of Celeste I should use whichever one I can get cheapest?

gugie 

Hmm, that does look familiar...

droppedandlost 

Pick that one. (the one I'm pointing at)

Drillium Dude 

One thing I've noticed looking at older Bianchis is that they have a hue similar to the tube of Phil grease - and I think it's a function of time and exposure to the elements. Also, exposure to grease; the sky-blue looks more seafoam-green around the BB shell and the top/bottom HS races on older frames even if they tend to lean more sky-blue.

For the most part, my '81 is more sky-blue than seafoam-green; while sky-blue is nice, I actually prefer the seafoam-green.

DD

P!N20

Copper plate it and let it oxidize.

Drillium Dude 

Me, I'd suggest Molteni orange but he's already got a DeRosa in that color!

DD

Andy_K 

I feel like this isn't helping me decide.

RiddleOfSteel

This guy did a DIY powder coat in "seafoam green" and it looks like Celeste to me (having seen the Celeste I've seen). Between that and your real life samples, it looks like light and camera filtering give some variance, but it seems to me that Seafoam Green (maybe in a pearl/metallic, because that's more fun!) is a great choice, with Pearlized Turquoise as a more vintage backup plan. Celeste, to me, strikes a balance between being breezy (light in shade) but not desaturated (dull/grey/limp), not dedicatedly green but not baby blue either.

Drillium Dude 

I just read it again and even I don't know wtf I was on about. In my defense, I did partake earlier. Carry on

DD

Andy_K 

Yeah, that definitely looks like it's on the right track.

(The aforementioned second SLX of @Spaghetti Legs)

jdawginsc 

Buy the bar tape you like...match to it.

bar tap is the most important color on a bike anyhow...

chainwhip

Or you could browse "old pawn turquoise jewelry" on Google images and match the stone that speaks to you :








I know, I know... "not helpful".

Trakhak

We've come a long way since the early days of Bike Forums, when many people said that they detested celeste bikes (a.k.a. "infant stool green," among other evocative descriptions).

Long shot: check with Bianchi USA---ask whether they have any pints of celeste available. I remember getting pints of paint from them, but I can't remember whether that was in the 1980s (Sky Yeager days) or in the 1970s, when the bikes were being distributed in the U.S. by Portofino International.

denaffen

I really just want an excuse to post mine for reference.