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Definitely not just US. I'm from Lithuania and these were the pencils we all used [0]. That was around 1992 and later, so could have been a relic from Soviets.

Only in later years green ones appeared and yellow with black stripes.

[0] - https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/lead-pencil-isolated-white-b...

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I distinctly recall yellow pencils in the USSR. Not that it was the only color, but it was definitely a popular one.

Looking it up, apparently this has something to do with pencils being manufactured in early (1920s) USSR by an American entrepreneur:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armand_Hammer#Career

https://i.imgur.com/vpObXqU.jpg

Eventually the Soviet government bought the entire operation from him, and thenceforth it became this:

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9C%D0%BE%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%BE...

And they probably just continued to use yellow, because why not?

I spent a year in the baltics, got homeschooled while there. The pencils were a tealish green and tasted much worse than your garden variety Dixon, but wrote much better.

It was probably an H grade rather than HB. Pencils in the US stores often come out smudgy to me ever since then...

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