The color striped resistors require you to first convert the individual color stripings into their equivalent digits. Sometimes, the series is evident by the number of stripes or just the stripe combination, since many, many color combinations are not possible in the wider tolerance series. A little thought and a lot of practice will make you proficient at reading striped resistors. To describe resistors in such a series, only 2 significant digits at most are needed. Thus 2 digits are all that are needed.
Resistors are small .
Being small, the lettering is even smaller . This is not true for numbered resistors. This can be a particular problem on printed circuit boards or any form where resistors are fixed in place.