In the year 2002 there were 146 officially released MASKS. The VAHI and orange PAKARI were both originally scheduled to be released in October of 2001, but both suffered the delaying limbo of cancellations only to escape in the first few months of 2002. In February the KRANA packs made their debut, bringing 96 KRANA, six gold KANOHI and six silver KANOHI. Five months later the KANOHI NUVA packs showed up, bringing the thirty six basic KANOHI NUVA to the world, as well as reprising the 96 KRANA from earlier in the year. However, sometime during the year eight new KRANA showed up with no immediate fanfare. The reason for this is that they almost looked exactly like eight previously released KRANA.

About the time that the BOHROK were first arriving on store shelves, MoD reader Thecankankanohi told me that some of the eyepieces glow under blacklight. I’ve always had a fascination with glow-in-the-dark stuff, so I bought a small flourescent blacklight and checked some of the different pieces to see what glowed and what didn’t. One thing that I noticed at this time was that while some colors of BOHROK eyes glowed, the corresponding KRANA didn’t. In fact, none of the KRANA did. Later that year I noticed that some of my new purple KRANA (I believe they were all from the KANOHI NUVA packs, though I’ve also gotten them in the GAHLOK VA that I ordered from Amazon.com a couple weeks ago) were a slightly brighter shade than the ones in my completed KRANA collection or the one in the brainpan of my GAHLOK VA. I’m not sure how I happened to notice the other odd distinction, but the new purple KRANA are also the only KRANA that glow under blacklight. While it’s not easy to look at a single purple KRANA under natural or artificial light and determine which version it is without having the other style to compare it to, it’s pretty unmistakable under blacklight. The original purple KRANA take on a rich dark shade of purple, while the new ones glow a moderately bright pinkish-magenta. I’ve included a photo showing a comparrison shot of both sets under basic incandescent light, and also under blacklight. If you don’t have a blacklight handy, and you’ve only got one type of purple KRANA, the best advice I can give on identifying them is to compare them to basic plastic purple bricks, such as those found in the NUI-JAGA or ONEPU sets. The older ones are a bit darker than the plastic parts, while the newer ones are just a tiny bit brighter.