Since no one has answered this yet, I'll put in my 2 c's. I grow several heirloom topsetting onions, and have toured the perennial onion growout at Heritage Farm in Iowa (Seed Savers Exchange headquarters) for several years. I have not seen an onion matching this description.

This does not mean that it does not exist, though. Most Egyptian-type topsetting onions are very hardy, so if they ever existed, someone somewhere probably still has them. Good luck on your search... if you find them, I hope we can do a trade, so I can get them into SSE's system for permanent preservation.

Hi I don't know if this person is still looking for heirloom egyptian onions, but I some old strains that were passed down to me in Tennessee from North Alabama. On most of my onion plants the bulblets are set in a large round ball about 2" to 3" across made up of dozens of smaller bulblets. With mine, the older the plant the larger the ball of sets. When you said your fathers onions set little bulbs in a perfect circle, are you meaning a flat single row of bulbs like petals on a flower? Most of mine have smaller bulblets in a large round ball, but some of my onions set several larger bulbs set in a round swirl instead of a round ball. They may have one or three to five bulbs where my others have dozens. They also tend to send a second shoot of bulblets from the center of the first.

I always though they were all the same plants but I may have several varieties all growing in the same patch. I think most of my plants have purple or redish bulbs at the base, like shallots. I almost never use the mature bulbs, I pull the onions like green shallots in the milder winters and spring.