2025-05-07
2025-05-07
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āHow many times did I say it, Harold? How many times? āMake sure that bomb shelterās got a can openerāaināt much good without a can opener,ā I said.ā
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Fun fact, the can opener was invented more than 80 years after people started putting food in tin cans.
Must have been wild when they could finally open all those 80 year old cans!
Iām going to have to go thereā¦how did they open cans before that?
Knives and other sharp tools
Funnily enough, that's also the time period the idea of "most accidents happen in your own home" really got legs.
Mostly by ring tabs, you can still see them with corned beef tins
Pull tabs were invented in 1959 (patented in 1963). They replaced church keys, which were in use starting 1934.
The tin can was in use by the Dutch navy since at least 1772, and was patented in 1810. The can opener was patented in the UK in 1855, a good 100 years before the ring tab.
The first cans were very beefy, and instructions stated to open them using a chisel and hammer. In practice people used whatever tools they had handy. I've seen illustrations of people using guns when nothing else was available.
The twist-key style was patented by J. Osterhoudt in 1866.
Sorry i didnt know the correct english name for it. Further the question was what they used before can openers and that was mostly key taps
Looks to me that that was invented 10 years after the can opener, and more than 50 years after the can.
did they shoot the cans or use another part of the gun?
In the old painting/drawing I saw they were shooting the cans. I can't find the picture, though. I saw it years ago in an article about the late invention of can openers. I don't even know if the article was online or on paper.
Teeth mostly. Sometimes small shaped explosive charges.
Hammer and chisel
Are we talking the crank-style can opener, or even the hook-type knife that some multi-tools have? Because the hook-type knife seems like a no-brainer that should have been figured out months after tin cans, not decades.
Probably wouldn't even have worked on those early cans. They were pretty thick, and heavier than the food they contained. The instructions usually stated to open them with a hammer and chisel.
But also, a lot of things seem obvious in hindsight.
Ultimate preppers