Why are most pencils orange?

Answer 1

Pencils in the United States and Canada tend to be painted yellow on the outside. According to Henry Petroski, this tradition now extends to a majority of pencils worldwide, and began in 1890 when the L. & C. Hardtmuth Company of Austria-Hungary introduced their Koh-I-Noor brand, named after the famous diamond. It was intended to be the world's best and most expensive pencil, and at a time when most pencils were either painted in dark colours or not at all, the Koh-I-Noor was yellow. As well as simply being distinctive, the colour may have been inspired by the Austro-Hungarian flag; it was also suggestive of the Orient, at a time when the best-quality graphite came from Siberia. Other companies then copied the yellow colour so that their pencils would be associated with this high-quality brand, and chose brand names with explicit Oriental references, such as Mikado and Mongol.

Not all countries however use yellow pencils; German pencils, for example, are often green, based on the trademark colours of Faber-Castell, a major German stationery company. Brazil uses green and black. The traditional low-cost pencil in Argentina is black (no specific tradename), but the typical expensive, high-quality pencil is black and red or yellow and black (Faber - Castell).

Answer 2

are they?! I failed to notice this...
I suppose you mean the writing kind of pencil and not the colouring kind although it would make more sense if you mean the colouring kind and I'm gunna shutup cos i'm not making much sense :)

Answer 3

Most of mine are red

Answer 4

So that they are easy to find.