Can opener

These featured a robust and compact design with a pull cutting blade hinged to a corrugated handle with a pivot.

Freshly caught salmon were cleaned, boiled in brine, smoked and placed in tin-plated iron boxes.

The instruction on those cans read "Cut round the top near the outer edge with a chisel and hammer.

[8] Coffee,[9] beans, and most other types of meat were packaged in cylinders with metal strips that could be peeled back with their own kinds of built-in keys that would roll around the top of the can.

[11] In 1858, another lever-type opener of a more complex shape was patented in the United States by Ezra Warner of Waterbury, Connecticut, US.

[12] This opener was adopted by the United States Army during the American Civil War (1861–1865); however, its unprotected knife-like sickle was too dangerous for domestic use.

[2] The first rotating wheel can opener was patented in July 1870 by William Lyman of Meriden, Connecticut, US and produced by the firm Baumgarten in the 1890s.

[31] The feed wheel teeth have a somewhat finer pitch than those of earlier designs and reside at the bottom of a V-shaped groove, which surrounds the rim on three sides at the point of action.

[37] In 1935, steel beer cans with flat tops appeared, and a device to pierce the lids was needed.

P-38 was developed in 1942 and was issued in the canned field rations of the United States Armed Forces from World War II to the 1980s.

The device can be easily attached to a keyring or dog tag chain using the small punched hole.

The P-38 and P-51 openers share a designation with the Lockheed P-38 Lightning and North American P-51 Mustang fighters, however this is coincidental.

[51] P-38s are no longer used for individual rations by the United States Armed Forces, as canned C-rations were replaced by soft-pack MREs in the 1980s.

They are also still seen in disaster recovery efforts and have been handed out alongside canned food by rescue organizations, both in America and abroad in Afghanistan.

or "U.S. Shelby Co."[52] A similar device that incorporates a small spoon at one end and a bottle opener at the other is currently employed by the Australian Defence Force and New Zealand Army in its ration kits.

The instructions printed on the miniature, greaseproof paper bag in which they were packed read: "Their design is similar, but not identical, to the P-38 and P-51 can openers.

For example, small folding openers similar to the P-38 and P-51 were designed in 1924 and were widely distributed in the Eastern European countries.

A non-folding version of the P-38 used to be very common in Israeli kitchens, and can still be found in stores, often sold in packs of five.

[56] Those openers were produced in the 1930s and advertised as capable of removing lids from more than 20 cans per minute without risk of injury.

[2] The same year, Walter Hess Bodle invented a freestanding device, combining an electric can opener and knife sharpener.

It was manufactured under the "Udico" brand of the Union Die Casting Co. in Los Angeles, California, US and was offered in Flamingo Pink, Avocado Green, and Aqua Blue, popular colors of the era.