Round Bottom Bottles

While doing some clean-out of my late-parents' house recently, we found a cardboard box with a pair of glass bottles in it. The odd thing that is the bottoms of both bottles are rounded — thereby preventing them from standing upright on their own. I had never seen anything like them! Since they were stored on a high shelf in a closet, they must be special, in some way, perhaps being handed-down from some long-deceased family member. However, I could not imagine what intended purpose these might have served.

The mouths of the bottles are very thick, ringed by a double-thickness of glass at that end. I am not sure if that serves a utilitarian purpose, or whether was deemed decorative, or both.

To solve this mystery, I turned to the good ol' Internet. Doing a search in my favorite search engine for "round-bottom bottle," I discovered several websites that provided education.

According to AquaExplorers.com¹, a website devoted to antique bottle collecting, a bottle shaped like a torpedo was invented in 1809. (See the darker bottle in the foreground of the image on the right.) These "torpedo bottles" were sometimes called "Hamilton bottles" after their inventor, William Hamilton. Bottles in that day were sealed with corks, which had a tendency to dry-out during storage. The torpedo shaped bottle forced them to be stored on their sides, thus keeping the contents in contact with the cork and preventing it from drying. These bottles were often used for storing carbonated water ("soda water"), and a dry work could allow the gas to escape. This information was corroborated on the TreasureNet.com³ website.

Around the 1870s, the non-torpedo shaped "round bottom bottles" began to appear, according to BottleBooks.com². They were originally manufactured in England, although they were made in the US later, and often contained ginger ale. It is this style of bottle which we found in my parents' house, and these were in common use until the early 20th century. The metal "bottle cap" which was crimped onto the top of glass bottles — originally called a "crown cork" or "crown cap" — was not invented until the 1890s⁴. This invention gained traction in the early 1900s, allowing bottles to be stored upright, thus eliminating the need for the round bottom bottles.

If you happen to find any of these round bottom bottles, know that they are collectibles and could hold some value. The torpedo/Hamilton bottles are even more valuable, as they are an older design and much sought-after by collectors of glass!