Today in 1894, US Patent 514200 A was issued, an invention of William Painter, for his “Capped-Bottle Opener.” There’s no Abstract, but in the introduction of his application, Painter states his “bottle opener essentially embodies a handle, having at one end thereof, a cap centering gage, and also a cap engaging lip, and however these three elements may be formed and combined, the centering gage should also afford a fulcrum, with respect of the handle and the cap engaging lip, and the latter should be substantially in line with the handle, so that when the opener is applied to a capped bottle, the gage will assure an appropriate bearing or fulcrum on top of the cap, with the lip located beneath or underlying a portion of the cap, and so enable the handle to serve as a lever for removing the cap from the bottle. Although without departure from my invention these three essential elements may be separately constructed and combined to form my bottle opener, they are more economically constructed integrally of iron or other suitably strong metal, as by molding or casting the opener in one piece, and it is in this form that my opener will be more particularly described.” After having patented the crown two years earlier, I guess he needed to invent a way to open the bottles, too.
