The STARR Story
Wall-mounted bottle openers since 1925
Brown Manufacturing Company has made the STARR and STARR “X” wall-mount bottle opener for more than a century. The design began with a 1925 patent. The brand grew up with American bottlers. Collectors saved the early pieces. Families kept the company alive.
The Early Years
Thomas C. Hamilton served as a sergeant in World War I. After the war he worked as a commercial soft-drink salesman in Denver, then managed a Whistle soda syrup factory in Boston. He married Mauline Starr.
Hamilton carried a lingering respiratory illness from his service in France, possibly related to gas exposure. In 1924 he filed a United States patent for a bottle-cap puller. Shortly before the patent issued, he and Mauline assigned the invention to Raymond M. Brown of Newport News, Virginia. The recorded consideration was $10 and “other considerations.” Hamilton died of tuberculosis in 1929 at age 46.
The STARR name almost certainly comes from Mauline Starr Hamilton. In the original trademark papers, Brown stated that STARR had been used with the openers since December 1924.
This founding chapter was documented in 2025 by historical researcher and STARR collector Dan Mardis.
1916–1925 | Newport News and the patent
1916
Raymond Brown opens his Coca-Cola Bottling Works at 33rd and Huntington Avenue in Newport News, Virginia.
1924
September 18 — Thomas Hamilton files U.S. patent application No. 738,385.
November 22 — the Patent Office rejects claims, citing earlier Emrick and Eckert patents.
December 17 — Hamilton files amended claims.
1925
January 9 — the amended claims are allowed.
March 20 — the $20 patent fee is paid.
April 15 — Hamilton assigns full rights in the application to Raymond M. Brown. The same day, Mauline S. Hamilton sells the M. S. Hamilton business and her interest in the invention to Brown.
April 21 — U.S. Patent 1,534,211 issues.
May 26–June 8 — Brown applies for and incorporates Brown Manufacturing Company in Newport News.
That spring is the company’s true beginning: a bottler, an inventor’s patent, and a name that would outlast both men.
1926–1949 | Bottlers, the STARR X, and the home-trade plan
1926
July 6 — the STARR trademark is registered.
September 9 — a Canadian patent issues for the three-hole “Inverted Starr,” used on early Icy-O machines.
1927–1929
The STARR Standard and the new STARR X stationary opener appear in The Coca-Cola Bottler. Liquid Carbonic adopts STARR X openers for its machines.
1930–1942
Brown promotes the STARR X Plan: install a free opener and build home trade by delivering Coca-Cola to the doorstep. Distributors in Houston, Miami, Chicago, Grand Rapids, Lake Charles, Dayton, Toledo, Atlanta, and other cities adopt the plan. The opener becomes part of how bottled soda reached American kitchens.
1936
The Brown Manufacturing Company charter is amended.
1937
Raymond Brown opens a new Coca-Cola bottling plant at 3200 Huntington Avenue. The STARR X trademark is registered. Brown invites bottlers to visit the company at the A.B.C.B. Exposition in New Orleans.
1943
November 2 — U.S. Patent 2,333,088 issues to Raymond Brown for improvements on the original Hamilton design.
1949
The STARR trademark is renewed.
1960–1989 | A long product, a changing company
1960
The 1943 STARR X patent expires. The opener itself does not. By then the design was already a fixture in bottling plants, taverns, and home kitchens.
1974
Raymond Brown Jr. takes over day-to-day operations.
1975
Casting moves offshore to West Germany. For the next three decades, many STARR X openers would be marked for German production.
1978
The Newport News Coca-Cola bottling plant is sold.
1979
October 7 — Raymond “Coca-Cola” Brown Sr. dies at 91.
The 1916–1979 bottler-era record was compiled by collector and researcher Harold John Eblen Jr., author of Guide to Collecting Brown Manufacturing Company STARR Bottle Openers Since 1925 and the STARR bottle opener collector.
1984
Raymond Brown Jr. is killed in a crash of a small, self-built airplane at an air show commemorating the Wright brothers.
1989
Pat Brown, his widow, sells the business and building to Borden James, the son of family neighbors. Borden continues the work as James Industries, also known as Brown Manufacturing Company. The opener stays in production.
1995–1998 | A move, a license, and a new family
1995
The company leaves its original Newport News home—the second site of the local Coca-Cola bottling company—and moves to 704 Gumrock Court. Some physical history is lost in the move.
1996
Brown ends its Coca-Cola retail license arrangement. Trademark Marketing International assumes that license.
1998
Borden James sells the company to Barbara Brim, owner of one of Brown’s largest customers, Trademark Marketing International. The business becomes Brown Manufacturing Company, Inc., a Georgia corporation, and moves to Alpharetta so it can sit inside her operation.
Her son, David Brim, takes over the running of it.
That is the hinge in the modern story. He had grown up in Sandy Springs, survived a serious 1988 car accident that left him with a TBI and blindness in his right eye, married Catherine Small in 1996, and was raising a young family in Decatur, GA. The work suited the way his mind now worked: a physical product, a repeating process, a name older than anyone in the building.
David has now run Brown for nearly a third of the company’s life. The years that follow are his to own—the good product decisions and the ones that did not pay, the years the brand found new customers and the years it almost disappeared.
1999–2005 | Printing, packaging, and taking the keys
1999
The first employee hired after the move was Jimmy L. Waters. Drying boards were filled completely instead of 100 pieces at a time. A wooden box holder was built for packing. The domain BottleOpener.com was purchased. By December, castings were arriving in gaylords of thousands rather than boxes of hundreds.
An open-faced box for the STARR X is introduced. The first advertising website goes up. Collegiate openers appear for Nebraska, Alabama, and Georgia. An AutoRoll pad printer replaces hand painting. One person can print 5,000 to 8,500 pieces in a shift.
2000
The first plain pad-printed STARR X is produced. The retro Coca-Cola CO4 returns. Custom work includes Harley-Davidson. The website steps back from direct retail and points customers to dealers.
2001
A first China casting order disappoints. A John Deere opener is introduced. An Econocorp cartoner ends most hand-folding of boxes. Cap catchers join the line. Rolling carts replace wooden drying tables.
2002
A Home Depot opener is introduced. Collegiate openers are dropped. The market was too narrow.
2003–2004
A second pad printer arrives. Play Fender and embossed Guinness openers are introduced. Restoration Hardware becomes a customer. The company moves to East Decatur Station, 3,500 square feet and a little more than a mile from David’s house. Jimmy Waters retires. Better Chinese investment castings arrive. Sales rise sharply.
2005
Tammy Ballard becomes the first Decatur hire. A stainless-steel STARR X is introduced. All stock in the company is sold to David Brim. The STARR trademark returns to Brown Manufacturing’s name.
From that point the company has a single owner.
2006–2008 | The end of Coke, the rise of the catcher, and a crash
2006
Duplicate printing and cartoning machines go in. New German-cast designs include FANTA, Sprite, retro Barq’s, and Chevrolet. A marketing video and a redesigned website appear. A small laser is added for making printing plates.
At year-end, an eighty-year working relationship with The Coca-Cola Company ends. Coca-Cola would allow others to make the familiar opener, but would not allow Brown to produce competing soft-drink brands. A fine tied to that conflict is split with Trademark Marketing International. The year brings both record sales and a hard loss. Closing out the Coke line was the right long-term decision and an expensive short-term one.
2007
Brown calls it the year of the cap catcher: plastic, then anodized aluminum, then stainless again. Packaging begins to say the quiet operational truth—a stationary opener needs a place for the cap to go. Minimums drop so smaller buyers can get in. The website becomes a retail cart. Online sales are still only a sliver of the business. Unit sales fall. The loss is the largest yet.
2008
ShipWorks connects the cart to the carriers. The printed catalog becomes a PDF. David reads Small Giants and recognizes the company he actually has: small on purpose, or at least small by fate, with a product that only works if the quality stays non-negotiable. Amazon selling begins. Then the financial crisis hits. Online sales reach 12 percent of the total. The company loses money for a third straight year. Net worth has been negative since early 2007.
Those three years are not a footnote. They are what it cost to leave the old Coke channel, rebuild packaging, and learn retail without a corporate parent.
2009–2014 | Bottom, then the first million
2009
The slide that began in late 2006 bottoms out in March. Another large wholesale customer—Trademark Marketing International—closes. That company had been Barbara Brim’s. In October she comes to work part-time at Brown. Piece counts hit an eleven-year low. Profit, against every instinct of a volume business, is the best of the Georgia years so far. Online sales pass 22 percent.
2010
The bottle-cap-mount opener is introduced so a customer can glue a favorite cap to the hood. An embossed SUPREME opener is produced. Patent numbers on new castings begin giving way to bottleopener.com after David reads about companies being sued over expired patent markings. Bergamot approaches Brown as a possible U.S. caster in zinc aluminum.
2011
After six and a half years in East Decatur, Brown moves to Avondale Estates: 7,400 square feet in a former Gorin’s ice-cream warehouse that had been a broom factory before that. CustomOpeners.com goes live. A fiber and CO2 laser capability is added. Net worth crosses back into positive territory on the books for the first time since 2007. Sales and profit set records. Piece counts climb back over 300,000.
2012
Large export runs go to Nicaragua. Sales cross $1 million for the first time as a Georgia corporation, and perhaps the first time in the company’s history. The MillerCoors license is not renewed. The restrictions were more than the volume was worth.
2013
Harold Eblen Jr. publishes the collector’s guide that remains the standard reference for early STARR openers. Amazon retail selling is paused. An Australian distributor comes on. David takes delivery of a 2012 Tesla Model S—an owner’s eccentricity that also marked how closely he followed manufacturing and software outside the opener business. A fiber laser for metal plates is purchased. A Coca-Cola STARR match plate fragment is bought on eBay. Record sales again. The 2006–2008 losses are finally erased.
2014
The longtime box maker closes. Old molds and tools saved from the Newport News dump by Clayton Denney are purchased and brought home—an expensive trip and one of the most important recoveries of company history. Sales approach $1.4 million. The company pays taxes.
For a few years it was possible to believe the old volume model still worked.
2015–2019 | Fewer openers, harder years
2015
Two-piece digitally printed hoods are tried, then magnetic hoods. Germany develops an “insert mold” so a custom embossed run can be as small as about 500 pieces with a modest tooling charge. Early designs include Home Brewed, Open Beer Here, Skull & Bones, and The Man Cave. The website moves to a Magento platform that proves difficult. Sales fall about 20 percent, the first year-over-year drop since 2007.
That same year David walks out of a family miniature-golf afternoon with an idea that never fully happened and never quite left: a bottled-soda fountain, opener museum, and mini-golf course. Cathy named it Putt & Pops. The lounge would have been The STARR X Lounge. The impulse underneath it was sound. The product is history you can hang on a wall. The company kept looking for a place to let people stand inside that history.
2016
Insert-mold runs continue. A single bulk order of 200,000 plain STARR X openers becomes the largest shipment of the era. Gun-blued openers and laser-engraved wood boards join the line. Facebook is tested. Sales slip again. The big bulk job helped volume and hurt margin.
2017
Competition from Asian imports and Amazon becomes impossible to ignore. Staff is cut. The Brim family loans the company $100,000. A Route 66 project is explored. Holiday sales are poor. The year finishes far below the 2014 peak.
2018
Pricing is rebuilt so the company is no longer giving away the opener at the high end of volume. Bronze samples are poured from old Clayton Denney molds. A new website is planned on a revenue-share arrangement. The family loans another $60,000. David cuts his own pay. The company loses money again.
2019
A Haas toolroom mill arrives so more work can be done in-house. It is the right instinct and the wrong year to learn a new machine while sales keep falling. The year is the worst yet on volume. The conclusion David first reached around 2005 returns with force: Brown will not sell more openers every year. It will have to sell them for more money.
2020–2023 | Pandemic, Pabst, lasers, and a weekly history project
2020
COVID-19 shuts retail and hospitality. Through March, sales were ahead of 2019. Then the floor dropped. Brown concentrates on deep-engraved stainless openers—Airstream, Jeep, DeLorean, a few beer brands—and asks forgiveness later on some of the artwork. A one-year Pabst family-of-brands license produces 16 deep-engraved, serial-numbered stainless openers. Combined sales of that series: 1,116 pieces. A metal-fabricator tenant takes unused warehouse space. Sales finish slightly above 2019. Given the year, that counted as survival.
2021
A 50-watt fiber laser arrives that can deep-engrave stainless and cast iron several pieces at a time. The Pabst license ends. The STARR X Club begins. Two original display boards recovered from the Newport News plant are rebuilt. Sales rise more than 15 percent. Average piece price is the highest it has ever been and still not high enough.
2022
Websites are rebuilt around four kinds of customer: manufacturers, retail, custom, and collectors. The mill is sold. A program begins: a new deep-engraved opener every week, drawn from classic beers, old sodas, and defunct craft brands, using period labels as the graphic source. The point is not only to sell an opener. It is to keep names on a wall that would otherwise disappear. A Lowes presentation is prepared and does not convert.
2023
Limited 316L stainless and later bronze-steel printed openers are produced as dated, small-run pieces. They are too expensive for the old wholesale model and exactly on brief for the new one: fewer pieces, more meaning. Attempts to force large-retail distribution are wound down. Consultants come and go. Family-loan payments pause to protect cash. It is the hardest year of the Georgia era. David writes at the time that the country’s mood is bad and the company’s direction has been fuzzy for a decade. Both were true.
2024–2025 | One hundred years, less inventory, a leaner shop
2024
No more personal cash goes into the company. A sale listing runs for six months and is taken down. Interest appears. A deal does not. Unproductive inventory is offered out, then written off or recycled. The main pad printer dies and is rebuilt from parts of older machines. The year still loses money, but most of the loss is the cleanup. For the first time in a long stretch, the owner treats a contained loss as a kind of win.
2025
April 21 — the Hamilton patent is 100 years old.
June 8 — Brown Manufacturing Company’s incorporation is 100 years old. The original charter even included land, a reminder that the Browns’ world was bottling, farming, and making in the same breath.
Dan Marlis finds the assignment papers, the incorporation file, and the early trademark record that make the founding story specific instead of legendary. Amazon agencies are tried and discarded. Almost every company URL is pointed to STARRbottleOpeners.com so the brand has one public home. America 250 licensing is secured. In December, after fifteen years at 158 Oak Street in Avondale Estates, Brown leaves the building.
David’s reading of the decade is blunt and fair: lost direction, declining sales, and a long stretch of strain on the family that kept the company open anyway.
2026 | A death, a move, and a sentence the company can stand on
January 4
Barbara Brim dies. She was the fourth owner of Brown Manufacturing and the person who brought the company to Georgia. https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/sandy-springs-ga/barbara-brim-12691109
February
The last key to the Avondale Estates building goes back to the landlords. David writes a new business plan he is willing to own.
The sentence at the center of it:
Brown Mfg. Company manufactures and sells custom STARR “X” bottle openers, leveraging our 100-year American legacy to deliver authentic retro storytelling, premium co-branded partnerships with legacy businesses and events, and iconic products in distinctive packaging - while continuously streamlining operations through digital tools and automation to maximize profitability.
February–May
America 250 opener and cap-catcher sets ship. A custom retro box is introduced, including a blank version for other marks. The Vintage Openers section of the site becomes the Vintage Archive. Collectors are asked to send in the pieces they have found.
May
Letters go to senior leadership at The Coca-Cola Company describing a possible partnership, license, or acquisition. The reply is a standard global-licensing screen: a large annual minimum, a royalty rate, and a retail-sales threshold far above Brown’s recent volume. The door is not closed. It is also not warm. The opener still carries a century of Coca-Cola bottler history. That history belongs in the record whether or not the modern corporation wants it on their current P&L.
June–September
Advertising begins on X for the anniversary opener. The first items go live on ASI’s ESP+. Holiday and America 250 campaigns follow on X and Meta. Decorating moves toward higher-finish work, including UV DTF and the retro box. The bet is no longer that Brown will win by being the cheapest wall opener in a box of 100. The bet is that the original still matters if it is presented as what it is.
