The bug

Items made of iron do not appear to use a standard color palette. This is the same problem as MC-248611, but for iron instead of leather.

It is possible to partition iron products into roughly two different major palettes, which we will call the "shiny palette" and "dull palette", respectively. However, there is still a considerable amount of variation between these.

Items using the shiny palette include:

• Iron ingots and nuggets
• Iron helmets, chestplates, leggings and boots, both equipped and as items
• Chain helmets, chestplates, leggings and boots, both equipped and as items
• Iron horse armor, both equipped and as an item
• Compasses
• Buckets of all content types
• Rails, powered rails, detector rails and activator rails
• Minecarts, both in item and entity forms
• Flint and Steel
• Iron axes, pickaxes, shovels, hoes and swords
• Hammer in the anvil UI
• Pistons
• Blocks of iron
• Iron pressure plates
• Iron doors and trapdoors
• Iron bars
• Iron golems

Items using the dull palette include:

• Anvils
• Cauldrons
• Chains
• Hanging signs
• Hoppers
• Lanterns
• Tripwire hooks
• Mob spawners
• Smithing tables

Expected results

The palette used for iron would be consistent throughout the game.

Actual results

The colors used are not consistent.