Bullseye glass - Nantucket

This window is from a shop on Nantucket, but the unusual pane of glass you see here can be found in many buildings of the early 19th century, and earlier. It’s called crown glass, or bullseye glass, and its pattern is the result of the handmade process used before machine-made glass.

When glass was made, it was blown into a hollow globe, or crown. It was flattened by reheating it and spinning it out into a flat disk, up to several feet, then cut to size. The center, called the bullseye, was used for less expensive windows.

Know a building with bullseye windows? Let us know.