The crown cork (also known as a crown seal, crown cap or just a cap), the first form of bottle cap, was invented by William Painter in 1892 in Baltimore. The company making it was originally called the Bottle Seal Company, but it changed its name with the almost immediate success of the crown cork to the Crown Cork and Seal Company. It still informally goes by that name, but is officially Crown Holdings.
The firm still survives, producing many forms of packaging. [1]
Prior to the invention of the external crown cork bottle stopper, soda bottles had ordinary internal cork bottle stoppers and often had rounded bottoms so they could not be stored standing upright. Corks have a tendency to dry out and shrink, allowing the gas pressure in the bottle to cause the cork to "pop", so bottles were stored on their side to prevents the corks from drying out. After the invention of the crown cork bottle stopper, this problem was eliminated, and soda bottles could be stored standing upright. [2]
Crown corks are collected by people around the world who admire the variety of designs and relative ease of storage. [3] [4] Collectors tend to prefer the term "crown cap" over "cork".[ citation needed ]
The Budweiser brand often uses the crown shape of the cap to accentuate its "king of beers" strapline.[ citation needed ]
Cork is an impermeable buoyant material. It is the phellem layer of bark tissue which is harvested for commercial use primarily from Quercus suber, which is native to southwest Europe and northwest Africa. Cork is composed of suberin, a hydrophobic substance. Because of its impermeable, buoyant, elastic, and fire retardant properties, it is used in a variety of products, the most common of which is wine stoppers.
A bottle is a narrow-necked container made of an impermeable material in various shapes and sizes that stores and transports liquids. Its mouth, at the bottling line, can be sealed with an internal stopper, an external bottle cap, a closure, or induction sealing.
A drink can is a metal container with a polymer interior designed to hold a fixed portion of liquid such as carbonated soft drinks, alcoholic drinks, fruit juices, teas, herbal teas, energy drinks, etc. Drink cans exteriors are made of aluminum or tin-plated steel and the interiors coated with an epoxy resin or polymer. Worldwide production for all drink cans is approximately 370 billion cans per year.
Cream soda is a sweet soft drink. Generally flavored with vanilla and based on the taste of an ice cream float, a wide range of variations can be found worldwide.
A bottle cap or bottle top is a common closure for the top opening of a bottle. A cap is sometimes colorfully decorated with the logo of the brand of contents. Metal caps with plastic backing are used for glass bottles, sometimes wrapped in decorative foil. Metal caps are usually either steel or aluminum, and of the crown cork type. Flip-top caps preceded such caps.
A stopper, bung, or cork is a cylindrical or conical closure used to seal a container, such as a bottle, tube, or barrel.
A corkscrew is a tool for drawing corks from wine bottles and other household bottles that may be sealed with corks. In its traditional form, a corkscrew simply consists of a pointed metallic helix attached to a handle, which the user screws into the cork and pulls to extract it. Corkscrews are necessary because corks themselves, being small and smooth, are difficult to grip and remove, particularly when inserted fully into an inflexible glass bottle. More recent styles of corkscrew incorporate various systems of levers that further increase the amount of force that can be applied outwards upon the cork, making the extraction of difficult corks easier.
A closure is a device used to close or seal a container such as a bottle, jug, jar, tube, or can. A closure may be a cap, cover, lid, plug, liner, or the like. The part of the container to which the closure is applied is called the finish.
A Mason jar, also known as a canning jar, preserves jar or fruit jar, is a glass jar used in home canning to preserve food. It was named after American tinsmith John Landis Mason, who patented it in 1858. The jar's mouth has a screw thread on its outer perimeter to accept a metal ring or "band". The band, when screwed down, presses a separate stamped steel disc-shaped lid against the jar's rim.
From the second half of the 19th century, milk has been packaged and delivered in reusable and returnable glass bottles. They are used mainly for doorstep delivery of fresh milk by milkmen. Once customers have finished the milk, empty bottles are expected to be rinsed and left on the doorstep for collection, or rinsed bottles may be returned to a participating retail store. Bottle sizes vary depending on region, but common sizes include pint, quart or litre.
Crown Holdings, Inc., formerly Crown Cork & Seal Company, is an American company that makes metal beverage and food cans, metal aerosol containers, metal closures and specialty packing. Founded in 1892, it is headquartered in Tampa, Florida. As of their annual report for 2020, Crown employs 33,264 people at 192 plants in 39 countries. It claims to manufacture one out of every five beverage cans used in the world, and one out of every three food cans used in North America and Europe. The company is ranked No. 286 in the Fortune 500 list for 2022 and is number one in the packaging and container industry for the same list.
Common uses for bottles made from glass include food condiments, soda, liquor, cosmetics, pickling and preservatives; they are occasionally also notably used for the informal distribution of notes. A glass bottle can vary in size considerably, but are most commonly found in sizes ranging between about 200 millilitres and 1.5 litres.
Charles G. Hutchinson invented and patented the Hutchinson Patent Stopper in 1879 as a replacement for cork bottle stoppers which were commonly used as stoppers on soda water or pop bottles. His invention employed a wire spring attached to a rubber seal. Production of these stoppers was discontinued after 1912.
William Painter was an American mechanical engineer, inventor and the founder of Crown Holdings, Inc., a Fortune 500 company. He most notably invented the crown cork bottle cap and bottle opener.
Towne Club is a local brand of soft drink produced and sold primarily in the metropolitan area of Detroit, Michigan. It is also sold in Flint, Grand Rapids, Lansing, Kalamazoo, Saginaw, Traverse City, Tampa, Florida, Indianapolis, Indiana, Cleveland and Toledo, Ohio at one time.
Hiram Codd was an English engineer and inventor. In 1872, he patented a bottle filled under gas pressure which pushed a marble against a rubber washer in the neck, creating a seal for soft drinks. This became known as the Codd bottle.
A screw cap is a metal, normally aluminium, cap that screws onto threads on the neck of a wine bottle, generally with a metal skirt down the neck to resemble the traditional wine capsule ("foil"). A layer of plastic, cork, rubber, or other soft material is used as wad to make a seal with the mouth of the bottle. Its use as an alternative to cork for sealing wine bottles is gaining increasing support. In markets such as Australia and New Zealand screw caps on bottles have overtaken cork to become the most common means of sealing bottles.
A Codd-neck bottle is a type of bottle used for carbonated drinks. It has a closing design based on a glass marble which is held against a rubber seal, which sits within a recess in the lip.
A flip-top, swing-top, lightning toggle, or Quillfeldt stopper is a type of bail closure frequently used for bottles containing carbonated beverages, such as beer or mineral water. The mouth of the bottle is sealed by a stopper, usually made of porcelain or plastic, fitted with a rubber gasket and held in place by a permanently attached wire bail. The bottle can be opened and resealed repeatedly without the use of a bottle opener, with the wires acting in the same way as a latch clamp. The flip-top was the dominant method of sealing beer and mineral water bottles prior to the invention of the crown cork.
Henry William Putnam (1825–1915) was an American businessman, inventor, manufacturer, and philanthropist born in Essex, New York, and who later lived in Cleveland, Ohio, Bennington, Vermont, Escondido, California, and San Diego, California.