Earliest known Iron Pontilled Bottles

[tigue710]

I believe they were using the metallic pontil process in some places as early as the mid 1840's, but that the process was not in general use until mid 1850's. I think it was a contemporary of the open pontil process but outlived it a little longer, with the sticky ball process going out of use earliest.

 

[baltbottles]

For Baltimore sodas 1836-1844 would be open pontil sodas 1845-1857 would be iron pontiled 1858 and forward would be smooth base This does not apply to torpedo and ten pin sodas. This rule also works well for Philadelphia sodas. Now the odd later 1840s and 1850s soda will show up with an open pontil but these are glass blowing flukes not a standard production technique. There may be a bit of overlap in iron and open pontil usage during 1843-45 as that was the transitional change over for standard soda bottle production.

Chris