Quote Originally Posted by bubba
Out of all this my impression would be that the wealthier the person the brighter the tartan. It's entirely possible the most common might have been in shades of brown. After all, brown does come in a wide variety of shades and tones. Just a guess on my part.
That's probably a reasonable guess. Throughout history, some colors were just more expensive than others, so it stands to reason that would also be the case for tartan.