228

A knife from Crown Cork

Company Limited, England

with master blade, corkscrew,

and crown cork opener / foil

cutter.

The Competition

In their 1954 publication,

Indiana: From Frontier to Industrial Commonwealth

, John

D. Barnhart and Donald F. Carmony wrote:

“

The Bernardin Bottle Cap Company was founded in 1881 in Evansville, by

Alfred Louis Bernardin, Sr. This started the first manufacture of metal closures in

not only the United States, but as far as is known, in the world. Since Mr.

Bernardin was in the wine importing business and they experienced trouble with

corks blowing out in ocean shipments, he devised a metal clamp to fit over the

cork and down around the neck of the bottle with a metal strap that tightened

the clamp and prevented the cork from blowing out the in transit. Later, Mr.

Bernardin invented many other types of metal closures for glass containers that

are still popular and in current usage. He invented the beer cap, or crown cap,

currently used on beer and soft drink bottles.

”

Back in the late 1970s, I was researching bottle opener and corkscrew patents and

I was surprised to come across a patent for a

“

Bottle Uncapping Tool

”

that dated

almost seven months before the William Painter patent. United States Patent

Number 501,050 had been issued on July 11, 1893 to Alfred L. Bernardin of

Evansville, Indiana with assignment to the Bernardin Metallic Cork Company.