Why is a pencil yellow?

Answer 1

Pencils were originally pieces of lead with string wrapped around them. When people started to make wooden casings for the pencils, they used high quality wood and covered the wood with varnish to show off the quality. The demand for wooden pencils rose, so people started to use lesser quaility wood and used paint on the wood. Therefore, the paint became a sign of cheapness. One man used a kind of graphite in his pencils instead of lead. He painted his pencils bright yellow and named his pencil the Koh-ih-noor, after the legendary Indian diamond, to make his pencils stand out. His pencils were so popular that other pencil makers started to paint their pencils yellow and naming them after jewels as well.