Eagle Pencil Company produced many mechanical pencils featuring quite unique design features. Here I'm showing three examples of their gravity based/button activated dropper pencils and knives. Pressing the button while holding the tip downward causes the knife or pencil piece to release and fall into working position. Reversing the procedure puts the unit back to the closed carry position.

The top piece is a combination knife and pencil. The activation method is interesting. The heart of the system is a removable, reversible button/pencil unit. One end of the unit is the button as explained above. The other end is the pencil. Pencil end is filled with fresh lead while the unit is out of the main housing by pushing on same button, releasing the jaw/tip end, allowing new lead to be installed. Releasing the button of course secures the lead via the jaws for writing.

The longest piece is 3 1/2 inches in the closed position. Circa 1890 - 1900.