50｜History of Glasses: Japanese Glass Manufacturers, Handmade Glass Factories 20

Hello everyone 🎵

This time, I'd like to talk about Kamei Glass, which, while not a glass manufacturer itself, greatly expanded and advanced the Japanese glass market.

Kamei Glass was not a manufacturer; it was a wholesale business, similar to Kimoto Glass. While it purchased and sold products from manufacturers, it also consigned the production of its own designs for sale and imported goods from various countries. Through its unique designs and aggressive sales approach, it built a new world for the glass market, supplying tableware wholesalers, glass wholesalers, specialty stores, wholesale businesses for restaurants, gift wholesalers, catalog gift companies, and cash-and-carry wholesalers across Japan. Unfortunately, due to what I believe was reckless management, the company went bankrupt and ceased operations in 1997 (Heisei 9). The ripple effect led to the bankruptcy or closure of numerous domestic and international glass manufacturers, as well as significant damage, including the consolidation of factories and transfers of management rights.

Although detailed information is scarce, and some parts may be inaccurate as this was before I entered the industry, I will discuss the period from the 1980s to the 1990s (around Showa 55 to early Heisei), when Kamei Glass was in its prime. As I mentioned previously in the history of glass, near Osaka Tenmangu Shrine, in the present-day Yoriki-cho and Doshin areas, it is said that in the Edo period, a Nagasaki glass merchant named Harimaya Kyubei learned the glass-making techniques brought to Nagasaki by the Dutch and produced glass items. Subsequently, glass factories increased, primarily in the Yoriki-cho and Doshin areas, and the Osaka glass industry grew rapidly, with some records indicating that the number of businesses exceeded those in Tokyo. Later, due to pressure from plastics and price competition both domestically and internationally, Osaka's once-thriving glass industry declined, and now, glass factories have disappeared from the Tenma area, where only the "Birthplace of Osaka Glass" monument remains. It was in an area with many such glass factories that Kamei Glass was founded as a wholesaler, expanding its network of glass factories and its business operations.

One of Kamei Glass's acclaimed achievements that is still celebrated today is the revival of Satsuma Kiriko. In 1980 (Showa 55), under the direction of then-President Setsuji Kamei of Kamei Glass, Osaka-based Kiriko craftsmen such as Mr. Seisuke Yuri and Mr. Takeichi Ura were involved in the revival of Satsuma Kiriko, which had ceased production due to the Sannan War, successfully restoring it in 1985 (Showa 60). Satsuma Kiriko is referred to as "phantom Kiriko" because it was only produced for a few decades, from the end of the Edo period to the early Meiji period. There are no descriptions of the manufacturing methods or processing techniques from that time, and only a few hundred existing pieces remain today. Only a small portion can be seen at the Suntory Museum in Tokyo.

From the acquisition of raw materials, refining to remove impurities, fuel sources for melting glass, techniques for melting at high temperatures, equipment capable of withstanding high temperatures for their creation, various tools, knowledge of metal chemical reactions for coloring glass, the realization of colors, to the techniques for cutting thick colored overlay glass (thick glass is difficult to cut as it does not transmit light well), and more—looking at the existing Satsuma Kiriko, it raises many questions about how it was developed and created in just a few decades during the Edo period.