Invention Of Ring Pull

At the end of the 20th century the ring pull appeared in Time Magazine's list of 'one hundred great things', but the ring pull per se, with a ring and a pull tab, was merely the second in a long line of tear-strip openers for drink cans.

Canned food was introduced in 1812, but cans were now used for drinks until the 1830s. Early drinks cans were made of steel, and were opened with a 'church key', which pierced a triangular hole in the top of the can; a second hole was required on the opposite side as a vent in order for the drink to flow. In the late 1950s steel cans were superseded by aluminum cans, which were easier to open, but still needed a separate opener. Then, in 1959, Ermal Fraze (USA) found himself at a picnic with no church key; he used a car bumper to open his beer before uttering the inventor's phrase: 'There must be a better way.'

Some time later, reputedly in an effort to lull himself to sleep on a caffeine-induced sleepless night. Fraze began to investigate the idea of inventing an integral lever for a drinks can, to negate the need of a separate opener. The idea was simple - score a tear strip into the can top and provide a lever to open and remove it. The engineering was not so easy, but, as the founder of the Dayton Reliable Tool & Manufacturing Company, Fraze had the necessary metalworking expertise, and in 1963 he was granted a patent for an: 'Ornamental design of a closure with a tear-strip opener.'

Fraze's ornamental design had an approximately rectangular tab (useful as a lever, but difficult to grip for the pull) and a keyhole-shaped-tear strip. The big breakthrough came in 1965, when Omar Brown and Don Peters (both USA) improved on Fraze's design by introducing a ring-shaped tab (into which a finger could be inserted) and by simplifying the shape of the tear strip, ideas that they patented on behalf of Fraze. The ring pull performed its function perfectly, but it also created large amounts of sharp litter. Then, in 1972, Brown took the idea a step further and invented the precursor of the 'push-in fold-back' inseparable tear strip (again patented on behalf of Fraze, granted 1975), thus solving the litter problem while retaining the convenience and ease of opening.

Source - The Book Of Inventions by Ian Harrison