Invention Of Crown Cork

The earliest of William Painter's 85 patented inventions related to rail travel, but his most lasting invention was the crown cork - the crimped metal bottle cap that is still in use more than 100 years after it was invented.

Although the crown cork was a hugely successful idea, its inventor, William Painter (USA), is possibly less famous for this than he is for inspiring King Camp Gillette (USA) to invent the safety razor. In 1855, at the age if 17, Painter began a four-year apprenticeship at a leather manufacturers, during which time he filed patents for his first two inventions, a fare box that was capable of giving change and a railway carriage seat that converted into a couch. He went on to patent a counterfeit-coin detector in 1862 and a kerosene lamp burner in 1863, before taking a job in the machine shop of Murrill & Keizer (USA) in 1865, where he was to work for the next 20 years, during which time he invented and patented more than 35 industrial tools and devices.

But Painter's greatest invention was the crown cork. Bottling fizzy drinks was a problem in the 19th century, because the volatile contents would often expel a conventional cork. In 1880 Painter set his mind to solving this problem and in April 1885 he was granted a patent for a reusable swing stopper known as the Triumph. In September that year he was granted a patent for a single-use stopper, which, being one-tenth the cost of the Triumph, was an immediate success, but made his earlier invention redundant. Still not satisfied that he had invented the best solution, Painter went on to invent the crown cork in 1891, an invention so successful that it is still in use, essentially unchanged, more than 110 years later.

Modern salesmen often talk about the 'razor-blade principle', or the 'Gillette principle', whereby a disposable product generates its own market for replacements. But, although the principle refers to Gillette and his invention, it was not Gillette who thought of it - as an aspiring inventor, Gillette was working as a salesman for Painter, and it was Painter who advised him: "Invent something that will be used once and then thrown away. Then the customer will come back for more."

Source - The Book Of Inventions by Ian Harrison