I'll concede that there may be a bit of nostalgia involved, but they are really nice bottles. Amongst the best out there. Really solid thick glass. Nearly impossible to accidently break. But, the closure is really what makes them. Solid. Secure. Water tight. Easy to open wearing gloves while holding several other things. Easy to open, remove what you need, and reclose, all without contaminating the remaining stock solution (if your sterile technique is solid). That's hard to pull off with a mason jar. Fully autoclaveable. In a lab setting, they'd be used to hold sterile media and stock solutions. Things worth a whole lot more than $12. And, they practically last forever, even in an environment that's kind of tough on the things. I'm finding it a little hard to explain why and how a good bottle like this is helpful and potentially worth a premium over baby bottles and mason jars until you've used them.
To address a question above, in homebrewing I'd be using them to hold sterile media for yeast cultures, premade sterile DME in agar for plating yeast, glycerol stock solution for freezing yeast cultures. That kind of thing. So much easier to have solutions ready to go when the moment strikes.
But no, I wouldn't fork out the full price for homebrewing. $12 a piece out of my own pocket? Not a chance. Not when other, cheaper or free options are available. Trust me, I'm a cheap bastard and not inclined to spend money on something when I can DIY it or repurpose something for homebrewing. So, mason jars and baby bottles are mostly what I tend to use. But, I've also come around to the idea that sometimes my time or making the process better or easier is worth something. At the sale price, I'd totally have nabbed them for homebrewing and split them with someone, since 5 would do me just fine.
TBH, I hadn't ever thought of spending good money for bottles until now. But, missing that sale does have me pondering and poking about a bit to see if there's something else comparable out there from Corning or someone else like Nalgene, Pyrex, Kimble, Wheaton, Cole-Palmer, Falcon...
Those pesky rabbit holes I'm always falling down.
