I particularly want the old basic color crystals. I have them available on one character, but I made a new Artifice and don't have them.

No, archived schematics are only available to characters that learned them prior to them becoming archived. New characters can't learn them. Even the old characters cannot learn ones on the archive list that they had not learned previously.

You can still learn archived items as long as there is a source for the schematics. For example: synthweaving and armormech prototype schematics that drop from investigation missons end up in your archive section when you learn them.

 

As far as crystal schematics there are still some schematics that drop in open world. I've seen some low-level schematics drop from world bosses, but the drop rate is very random. Check the GTN to see if any schematics show up there.