Crown style tops, usually seen on soda and beer bottles, were patented in the United States in 1892. If you know your history, you know the  U.S. Patents from this time period, don't mean much. In truth, this style was being used overseas by wine-makers several years earlier than this. They used the style, but actually still tied corks down with wire wrapped under the lip. It was 1900 before the steel crown cap was ever used, up till then it had been corks and lightning-type stoppers in the USA on this style. The crown caps originally had cork or rubber under them, cork being favored in the long run. Cork was stopped somewhere around 1970 (as being unsanitary) and it's been a plastic liner ever since. The reason I even bother writing this guide is to let you budding bottle diggers, collectors or dealers know, that just because something has a crown style top, don't immediately dismiss it as "new". There's at least as many hand-tooled crown tops out there as blobs, when it comes to old beers and sodas.