Guinness® Collectors Club

The Crown Cork was invented by William Painter, an American of British descent who lived in Baltimore a century ago. Painter was a keen inventor who took out over 80 patents during his busy lifetime, not all to do with bottles!!

His first British patent relating to bottle closure or capping was obtained in 1885. This patent involved a 'disc' capping of flexible material such as linoleum which could be holed with a special piercing tool. Over the next six years various changes were made to his original ideas and soon a crimped metal bottle top was invented to crown bottles with a new style lip/neck design. This was known as the Crown Cork closure.

All that was now required was a lever device to open these new bottles and subsequently the Crown Seal bottle opener was born. Dating openers is very difficult but registered numbers on some openers gives us some idea. The number RD.702661 and 708483 first appeared in 1923/4. The earliest types of openers had a round looped head, had stamped lettering and wer usually quite small, about 2 3/4 inches long. The other relatively common type of cast iron opener that you may come across has the numbers RD.811274 on one side and PT.466444, a design registered in 1936. A handy reference for dating some bottle openers can be made by viewing the label section and checking out the history of the bottling company that is advertised upon the opener.