| Description |
SHIPPING AVAILABLE > A large collection of older can and bottle openers, with many rare examples included, as shown
CONDITION REPORT > Condition varies ~ Expect typical and minor elements relative to age, use and materials.
Collecting Can & Bottle Openers
In 1892, an American bottle-maker named William Painter invented the crown top for bottles that we now generically call soda bottle style. Such a bottle is blown with a quarter-inch vertical corrugation around the top intended for a tight-fitting metal lids that fits down into the corrugations. Such bottle lids keep liquid in and germs out. Their only problem is that crown tops require a special opener, for which Painter also invented the pry opener. Painter’s crown-top system was such an immediate success that it was rapidly adopted by bottlers everywhere in America and soon around the world. For decades, most soda and beer bottles (and many other products) came with crown tops that necessitated a Painter’s metal lid opener. These openers were cheaply made, so beverage companies, grocery stores, bars and restaurants gave the bottle openers away by the tens of thousands, perhaps millions, to encourage purchase of beers and sodas. Most had some company’s advertising on them.
For a couple of decades most bottle openers did only one thing but did it well: They pried crown tops off glass bottles. Starting in the 1930s, however, manufacturers began creating other product containers with tops that opened best with other particular openers and put their names on those openers and gave them away. But eventually multipurpose devices that had several edges for opening different cans as well as bottles were manufacturer. Some multipurpose gadgets included a corkscrew, a small knife, a man’s button hook and cigar cutter. Eventually, some were marketed with rotary can openers, a mainstay of the modern kitchen. Today’s kitchen has at least one crown bottle opener (several if there are soda drinkers) along with other devices to twist off some lids or lever off sunken wax or metal tops. After WWII, household hold product makers were anxious to get their names in front of consumers everywhere, so they gave away millions of bottle openers of varied kinds with their names on them.
The earliest bottle openers were small, flat and simple, shaped rather like a key with holes toward each end. One hole had a corrugated edge that would lift a soda bottle cap, while the other end had a smaller hole for a key chain. Before 1920, most openers had a company name stamped in the metal, which is a good clue to dating very old openers. However, in the 1920s, many openers acquired a small square hole at one end: this was for adjusting one’s car’s Prest-o-lite headlights. Nearly every car for a time had these gas-powered headlights, and adjusting them was part of daily driving life. The right tool on a bottle opener proved very handy. Of course, as car equipment changed, the keyhole opening enlarged and became handy for other tasks.
Collectors of bottle openers often favor certain subject matter, making their openers conversation pieces. Some seek certain brands of whisky or beer, city names and certain car makers or dealers. Collectors may seek out openers resembling various fish, items like boots or shoes, or brands of cigars. Some collections emphasize particular metals such as cast iron, brass or steel. Some wall openers came with a cap catcher, an attached box for the caps to forestall mess on the floor or countertop and to retrieve metals in wartime when they were valuable). While many openers are figurals (such as having the familiar form of a naked woman or mermaid, others resemble common animals such as a horse, a dog or an eagle. Nowadays, depending on what’s popular, you might see an opener shaped like a pirate’s cutlass or a hot rod or a motorcycle. While very early openers usually retained the vague shape of key, metal scarcity during WWII and post-war times resulted in openers that were just steel outlines.
Today, a surprising number of household products require particular openers. Although many soda bottles now have twist off caps, other household products still have tops that require a classic bottle opener. Kitchen drawers get cluttered with various types of openers, but always include at least one of Painter’s crown-top invention.
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