While I do love prismacolor (mentioned in the other reply), if you're looking to save a little bit of money, I enjoy Derwent Coloursoft. They are wax based, so they do have limits on layering; however they go down easy and blend well up until that point.
(To avoid amazon, I'd order from dick blick or another art supply store)
It was really strange. Thankfully things were slightly better by the 90s when the central division was added, but that still had weird groupings like Houston/Pittsburgh (or Miami/Montreal).