Name/Title
Cap, BottleEntry/Object ID
2004.021.124Description
Metal "crown" bottle cap with a red, white,and blue logo. This cap was found in the parlor of 607 Grove Street during an archaeological excavation. The logo is the initials I, B, and M printed on top of one another in red, outlined in white. The initials appear on a blue circular background. A wide red circle surrounds the inner circle. In white letter inside the red band, "Idaho Brewing & Malting Co. is printed. There are two black and white scrolls on either side of the initials, printed across the outside circle. One reads, "TRADE" and the other says "MARK." The cap has a corrugated-flange edge, and is lined with a thin cork disc. When the bottle was unopened, the cork worked to seal the bottle and also to prevent contact between the metal cap and the drink. A similar cap was found in a knothole in the first layer of flooring in the parlor, giving a good indication of the age of these caps. This cap was most likely originally on a beer bottle. Two of the sides are partially bent together, making the cap an oval shape.
An American of British descent, William Painter, invented the modern bottle cap in 1891. He got the patent for the Crown Cap on February 2nd 1892 (patent no. 468,258). Painter came up with a one-time use cap with a cork lining he called crown cork since it resembled the British Queen’s crown. This type of bottle cap is still in wide use today by the beer industry. The invention in the early 1900s of mass production of glass bottles lead to an increase in the use of crown caps. Within 20 years nearly all soft drink and beer bottles were sporting crown caps. During the 1960s the advent of less expensive synthetic materials and sparse cork resources lead to the replacement of the cork lining in crown caps with plastic.