William Painter (inventor)
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- This article is about the American inventor. For the English author, see William Painter.
William Painter (1838 - 1906) was the inventor of the bottle cap and the founder of Crown Holdings, Inc., a Fortune 500 company. He was born In Ireland and moved to the United States at the age of 20. He has over 80 patents, including the common bottle cap, the bottle opener, a machine for crowning bottles, a paper-folding machine, a safety ejection seat for passenger trains, and a machine for detecting counterfeit currency.