The Iron Pontil

[jwpevahouse]

I doubt that there were many if I'm correct in the two blowpipe theory and that the glass tipped end was kept hot for adhesion in the furnace opening. I believe that the search for an improved pontil stemmed more from eliminating the risk of the sharp scar protruding from the bottle's base cutting a consumer during everyday use.

An interesting fact about ponitil bottles is patent medicines before the Civil War usually, but not always, have a broekn glass pontil. Whereas. green soda and beer bottles will have the iron pontil and very rarely a broken glass pontil. there's also the issue of why aqua soda or beer bottles almost never have any pontil. It's understandable in the case of patent medicine bottles, they were not to be refilled, they were throw away bottles. Soda and beer bottles were more expensive and returned for reuse. There was little effort o improve the quality of patent medicine bottles before 1870.