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 (renamed Mirado) and Mongol. Not all countries use yellow pencils. German and Brazilian pencils, for example, are often green, blue or black, based on the trademark colours of Faber-Castell, a major German stationery company which has plants in those countries. In southern European countries, pencils tend to be dark red or black with yellow lines, while in Australia, they are red with black bands at one end. In India, the most common pencil colour scheme was dark red with black lines, and pencils with a large number of colour schemes are produced. Pencils are commonly round, hexagonal, or sometimes triangular in section. Carpenters' pencils are typically oval or rectangular, so they cannot easily roll away during work. Notable users Thomas Edison had his pencils specially made by Eagle Pencil. Each pencil was three inches long, was thicker than standard pencils and had softer graphite than was normally available. Charles Fraser-Smith During World War II, Fraser-Smith worked for the Ministry of Supply, fabricating equipment nicknamed "Q-devices" (after Q-ships) for SOE agents operating in occupied Europe. In 1942, Charles Fraser-Smith, who worked in MI9, arrived at the Cumberland pencil factory, he had an idea to create a secret map and compass pencil. These were given to Lancaster Bomber airmen and were made secretly under the Official Secrets Act, in Keswick. Vladimir Nabokov rewrote everything he had ever published, usually several times, in pencil. John Steinbeck was an obsessive pencil user and is said to have used as many as 60 a day. His novel East of Eden took more than 300 pencils to write. Vincent van Gogh used only Faber pencils as they were "superior to Carpenters pencils, a capital black and most agreeable". Johnny Carson regularly played with pencils at his Tonight Show desk. These