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The tough job now was to convince brewers and bottlers to use the Crown Cork.
His invention was eyed with skepticism. How would the beverage react to the
cork? How long would it keep? To prove that the Crown Cork was the best bottle
closure, Painter sent some bottled beer sealed with Crown Corks on a ship from
North to South America. When the ship arrived, the beer had not lost its flavor.
Some brewers and bottlers began to convert to his system. Others were still
skeptical. Even Milwaukee brewing giant Pabst was not willing to accept this
new fangled idea. They continued to cork their beer until 1910.
The company grew quickly, and by the time Painter died in 1906, the company
had plants in Europe, Asia, and South America. By the time the 1930s rolled
around, Crown Cork and Seal was producing half of the world
‟
s supply of bottle
caps.
In 1908 a crown cap lifter was produced with an ornate silver handle.
Interestingly it depicted a hand holding a corkscrew pulling a cork from a bottle.
The cap lifter is marked PATD FEB 6 94
Just because the Crown Cork was being produced, it did not mean the end of
other methods of sealing bottles. In order to make the Painter style cap remover
more useful, early examples were produced with other functions. In the
following cuts from Crown Cork and Seal advertisements we see the opener /
bottle stopper combination, the loop seal remover, the aluminum stopper
remover, and the Crown Cork remover.
