The can opener was invented 45 years after the tin can was invented (8 photos)

How did people open cans before this?





In 1810, English inventor Peter Durand presented his invention - the tin can. However, the invention of the can opener was still 45 years away. Can you imagine how people suffered trying to open it?

Moreover, tin cans 200 years ago were much more durable. The effective use of thin tin came much later. The first canned food was opened with a chisel and a hammer, and it was a whole art!



Durant himself did not produce cans en masse - he resold the patent to manufacturers who began supplying canned food to the army. But in the early days, in the army, gunpowder and turpentine were stored in these jars.

The first canned food was bulky - the empty can itself weighed half a kilogram.

It is not surprising that the first buyers of the cans were the military. After all, you can kill with such a can!





The work was done by hand, so the jars were expensive. The master could collect no more than six cans per hour.



Moreover, some canned foods were deadly because the cans were made using lead. Many expeditions, including travelers to the Arctic, took such canned food with them. And, as analysis of the remains showed, many died precisely because of lead poisoning. After all, they had to eat food poisoned by lead for several years in a row.



The breakthrough came at the end of the 19th century, when industrial production of cans from thinner tin was established. Production immediately increased to 6,000 cans per hour. Their cost fell sharply, and the product quickly went from being highly specialized to becoming mass-produced. Lead had already stopped being used by that time.



American artist Andy Warhol painted such jars and sold them for $100. Now these paintings are worth millions

The first can openers were also quite cumbersome and did not immediately come into use. But later the design began to be simplified.



By the way, in the USSR they made classic can openers according to a design close to the original one.



On the left you see a diagram of a knife by inventor Robert Yates, drawn by him in 1855. And on the right is a ready-made knife, mass-produced in the USSR.