On Wed, 09 Sep 2009 14:51:49 +0100, Dave A
had this to say:

The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Andy Champ wrote:
Tim S wrote:

I thought the E12 scale was specifically developed so you could get
close
enough (TM) to almost anything you practically want with just two
resistors - series or parallel.

Or is that another factoid in my myth database?

Each one is 20% more (roughly) than the previous one.

that being the sort of tolerance on them anyway, when first introduced.

Salmon coloured band for 20%?

ISTR that a salmon band indicated High Stability.

--
Frank Erskine