For many young people today, the milkman must seem like some creaky myth from the past.

In fact, it wasn’t all that long ago that milk in bottles, delivered fresh daily, was the norm across the United States and Europe—in some areas, the practice is still common.

The disk-like mark is sometimes confused with a pontil.

the pontil is actually broken glass where the metal rod used to hold the bottle while the lip was form was broken off leaving a sharp scar.

Legend has it that Thatcher was disgusted after watching a milkman dip from a can into which a child’s toy had dropped.

Early Thatcher “milk protector” bottles are embossed with a seated Quaker farmer milking a cow.

That mark helps date some glass pieces, usually from circa 1850.

Replicas of this bottle are readily available, but originals are scarce.

Thatcher may have been the first person to put a milk bottle to use, but George Henry Lester was the first person to patent the idea, which he did with his Lester Milk Jar in 1878.

Milk bottles with the names of many different dairies from many different locations are popular kitchen collectibles.

Before the paper milk carton or the plastic jug, dairies sent milkmen out to deliver glass bottles.