Crown cork

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Kronenkorken 01 KMJ.jpg
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A generic 21-tooth crown cork bottle cap.
Opening a crown capped bottle Kronkorken.gif
Opening a crown capped bottle

The crown cork (also known as a crown seal, crown cap, metal bottle cap, or just cap) was the first commercially successful bottle cap design. It was invented by William Painter in 1892 in Baltimore. Painter had been working for years trying various bottle cap designs, with his company the Bottle Seal Company. After he released the patent for the crown cork in 1892, which was an immediate success, he started a new company, Crown Cork & Seal Company (now Crown Holdings).

Contents

History

A Dutch patent application from 1892 Kroonkurk.png
A Dutch patent application from 1892

The inventor was William Painter who was born in 1838 in Tridelphia, Maryland to a Quaker family. Described as an "irrepressible tinkerpreneur," he had no higher education but had the drive to "make something." [1] [2] In the late 19th century, the market for bottled beverages like beer and soda was growing, but sealing carbonated drinks was a problem. Existing stoppers were a mix of cork, glass, wire, and rubber contraptions. They were often expensive, unsanitary, and unreliable. Corks could dry out and shrink, causing leaks, while other stoppers were difficult to clean and could affect the taste. By the 1880s, the U.S. Patent Office had approved an estimated 1,500 different bottle stopper patents. [1] [3] While working as a foreman at Baltimore's Murrill & Keizer machine shop, Painter became preoccupied with the bottle stopper challenge. In 1885, he patented two stoppers: the "Triumph," a wire-retaining stopper, and the "Bottle Seal" (also known as the "Baltimore loop seal"). The Bottle Seal was a simple, flat rubber disk that fit into a groove inside the bottle's mouth, forming an "inverted arch" that resisted internal pressure. It was cheap enough to be disposable, selling for just twenty-five cents per gross, a fraction of the cost of reusable stoppers. [1] [4] To manufacture it, Painter and his business partner Samuel Cook formed the Bottle Seal Company. [1]

Despite the success of the Bottle Seal, William Painter was not satisfied. His idea was to invent something "which everybody needs, better and more cheaply provided than ever before." [1] In August 1891, while on a family vacation in Narragansett, Rhode Island, he came up with a new idea: a metal, corrugated cap internally lined with a thin cork disk that would seal the top of the bottle, "crowning" its mouth. [1] [4] [5] This approach eliminated any contact between the stopper and the beverage, ensuring sanitation, and created a gas-tight seal perfect for carbonated drinks. The thin cork liner provided the seal, while the tin cap held it in place with a series of crimped "flutes" or corrugations that locked under the bottle's head. [1] [6]

Painter understood the cap's advantage as a small, cheap and most importantly a disposable product. It guaranteed never-ending sales, a very low cost to manufacture, and no ongoing stopper maintenance (collecting, cleaning, repairing). In his patent application, he noted that he had devised "metallic sealing-caps... so inexpensive as to warrant throwing them away after a single use." [1] This concept was unusual in an era accustomed to reuse. On February 2, 1892, Painter was granted three patents for his new system: one for the cap itself, one for the sealing disk's composition, and one for the use of cork and other materials. [1] [7] The family dubbed the invention the "crown cap," and Painter's son Orrin drew the company's crown logo. [1] One editor marveled that the invention "crowned one of the most troublesome inventive problems with a success which is simply dazzling." [8]

In 1892, Painter founded the Crown Cork & Seal Company in Baltimore to manufacture his new invention.

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Malkin, Michelle (2015). Who Built That: Awe-Inspiring Stories of American Tinkerpreneurs. Mercury Ink. pp.  116–117, 120–121, 122–123, 124-125, 126–127, 128–129, 130–131.
  2. ↑ Hawkins, John T. (1914) [1897]. "William Painter and the Crown Cork and Seal Co.". In Painter, Orrin Chalfant (ed.). William Painter and His Father, Dr. Edward Painter: Sketches and Reminiscences. Baltimore: Arundel Press. pp.  44–49.
  3. ↑ Pacher, Sara (January 1962). "New Market for Crown Cork & Seal". Atlanta . 1 (9): 27, 47-49.
  4. 1 2 Painter, Orrin Chalfant (1914). "Reminiscences of William Painter". William Painter and His Father, Dr. Edward Painter: Sketches and Reminiscences. Baltimore: Arundel Press. p.  28-30.
  5. ↑ Taylor, David A. (2018). Cork Wars: Intrigue and Industry in World War II. Johns Hopkins University Press. pp.  10-11, 12-13.
  6. ↑ Forget, Carl (1998). The Association of Brewers' Dictionary of Beer and Brewing. Brewers Publications. pp.  48-49.
  7. ↑ O'Prey, Maureen (2018). Beer in Maryland: A History of Breweries Since Colonial Times. McFarland & Company. pp.  127-129.
  8. ↑ O'Brien, Joseph J. (1914) [1913]. "A Remarkable Patent Success—The Story of a Corking Invention". In Painter, Orrin Chalfant (ed.). William Painter and His Father, Dr. Edward Painter: Sketches and Reminiscences. Baltimore: Arundel Press. pp.  62–63.
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