Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-03-09
USES OF TIN FOIL
MADE IN ATTRACTIVE FORMS
AND EMPLOYED IN MANY WAYS.
Not Beaten Out Like Gold Leaf, but
Rolled Out in Wide
Sheets.
From the New York Sun.

From the New York Sun.
It used to be that tin foil was beaten out,
as gold leaf has always been and is today;
but about fifty years ago an American in
vented machine for rolling out tin foil that
revolutionized the tin foil industry.
The beaten-out tin foil had been made and
used for very many years for wrapping up
various things which it was desired to pre-
serve in their original condition. The new
process of manufacture, by materially re-
ducing the cost of it's production, widely ex-
tended the use of tin foil for these purposes
of utility.
A little later the American who invented
the tin foil rolling machine invented a ma
chine for enclosing tin foil, by means of
which any desired design or pattern could
be used, and processes were devised for col
oring the surface of tin foil in any desired
color. So that there came to be produced
tin fois that were covered all over with del
icately embossed flowers and vines and
stars and diamonds and stripes and so on in
great variety of patterns and designs, and
fois embossed in imitation of silk and other
fabrics. and these prettiiy embossed folls
were co1Ored in many different delicate and
brilliant colors, and made of one color on
one side and another color on the other.
Embossed Foils.
The embossed foils were made also with
wise foils smooth surfaced. In short. tin
foils had now come to be thing of beauty
as well as utility. One who had never seen
any but the plain smooth tin foil could have
but little notion, in fact, of the beauty in
which tin foil is now produced.
And with tin foil produced in such forms
it came to be used not only for purposes of
utility but for various uses in which it
would add to the attractiveness of the goods
around which it was wrapped. The thinnest
of the colored and ornamental foils are
called tissue foils, and they are scarcely If
any thicker than tissue paper. Tin foils are
rolled in almost endless variety of thick
nesses, foils ranging from 1000 square inches
to 1900 square inches being made from one
pound of metal.
Beside being used in the wrapping of
various sorts of products sold in packages,
tin foil is used for wrapping around bottle
necks, and over the heads of some. 1t is
used for wrapping chocolate and cheeses
and candy and chewing gum and for cigars
and tobacco.
There is an old story of how tin foil
helped to make one mans fortune that of
man well known in his day and still well
remembered, a tobacconist and tobacco
manufacturer. AS this story runs, Gen.
Scott just then about to depart to take
command of the United States troops en-
gagged in the war with Mexico, came to
this tobacconist and asked if there were
not some way in which tobacco could be
put up for him so that it would not dry
OUT ana QGlSTlOTdIe III the country 10 WHICH
he was going.
Tobacco in Foil.
The tobacco man hit upon the plan of
wrapping the generals tobacco in tin foil
wrappers. This plan worked beautifully,
and there sprung up for tobacco wrapped
in tin foil a great demand, which the to-
bacco man was prompt to supply. A fe-
licitous and attractive name for the to-
bacco thus put up, a name long familiar,
helped to increase the demand for it, and
fortune followed.
Chandeliers are wrapped up in tin foil,
in fact there is a special foil in long strips
made for this use Soap is wrapped in tin
foil. Violet colored and prettily embossed
tin foil is used for wrapping up the stems
of punches of violets, and tin foil of vari-
Gus sorts is wrapped around the stems of
bouquets of other flowers. Tin foil finds
ornamental uses at Christmas time.
A sort of tin foil which, however, is not
called foil, but cap metal, is extensively
used in the manufacture of bottle caps, of
which there are now used in this country
alone hundreds of millions annually, such
caps being now put on many bottled prod
ucts to give a handsome finish to the pack
age, in keeping with the general improve
ment now prevailing in putting up all such
packages. Bottle caps, which are of an
Gent use, were once all spun by hand; and
in fact, the finest and heaviest bottle caps
are still made in the same manner but
the very great majority of the enormously
greater number of bottle caps now used are
machine made.