36｜History of Glass: Japanese Glass Manufacturers, Handmade Glass Factories (Part 6)

Hello everyone 🎵

Last week, on the 12th, my eldest son got married. As some of you may know, I'm a father of five children – two boys and three girls. With this wedding, four of them are now settled (laughs), leaving only my youngest daughter. I'll continue to do my best as a parent for a little longer ♪

Now, Sasaki Glass had long been a leader in Japan's glass market. In particular, their mass production through automation, which they introduced for the first time in Japan, and their Hard Strong HS reinforced glass, used by many in the commercial sector, significantly transformed the Japanese glass market.

I had actually been paying attention to Sasaki Glass's crystal manufacturing for a long time. They moved their automated production from the Sumida factory to the Chiba Yachiyo factory, and the Sumida factory became a crystal production base, developing, producing, and selling numerous excellent products. I will explain the difference between crystal glass and ordinary soda glass in detail at a later date, but simply put, crystal is highly transparent, has a substantial weight, and projects an image of luxury. At that time, HOYA Crystal and SASAKI Crystal were sold not only in Japan but also in America and other overseas markets as high-end Japanese crystal.

Sasaki Glass established an office right in the heart of Manhattan, America, and prominently set up SASAKI Crystal corners in luxury department stores like Bloomingdale's and Macy's. As a luxury brand, alongside French Baccarat, British Waterford, and American MIKASA, it gained immense popularity as a brand Americans aspired to. I can never forget the high-class image and magnificent display of the SASAKI Crystal corner at Bloomingdale's when I first went to New York in 1995.

When I was doing business for the US military PX for a while, most American soldiers knew about Sasaki Crystal and used it as a coveted item for Christmas presents.

A representative work is "Robin," a masterpiece that incorporated the image of a bird into the stem of a wine glass. This design series expanded its lineup not only to wine glasses but also to items other than dinnerware, such as candle stands and dinner bells. Later, series like "Suzuran" and "Paris" with blue stems, handmade crystal made in Tokyo, sold rapidly in the American market. It is believed that these profits greatly contributed to the management of Sasaki Glass.

These products were not mainstream in the Japanese market at the time, only being used partially for gifts. The Japanese lifestyle mostly involved using so-called cups and tumblers, and unlike now, wine was consumed by a limited minority. As a result, items with stems like wine glasses had low sales in the Japanese market for a long time. However, in Europe and America, stemmed glasses like wine glasses are used in everyday life. Sasaki Glass successfully challenged and conquered this market.

Even now, Kimoto Glass still has many of Sasaki Crystal's masterpieces created in the 1980s and 90s. I plan to show them to everyone at some point.