Crown Cork

The crown cork (also known as a crown cap or just a crown), the first form of bottle cap, was invented by William Painter in 1891 in Baltimore. The company making it was originally called the Bottle Seal Company, it changed its name with the almost immediate success of the crown cork to the Crown Cork and Seal Company. It still informally goes by that name, but is officially Crown Holdings. The Patent was granted in 1892, as US patent 468,258.

The crown cork was the first highly successful disposable product (it can be resealed but not easily). This inspired King C. Gillette to invent the disposable razor when he was a salesman for the Crown Cork Company. The company still survives, producing many forms of packaging.

Crown corks are collected by people around the world who admire the variety of designs and relative ease of storage. Collectors tend to prefer the term crown cap over corks. In Spain as well as in South America these are called chapas, while in the Philippines the term tansan is used.