51｜History of Glass: Japanese Glass Manufacturers, Handmade Glass Factories 21

Hello everyone 🎵

Following on from last week, I would like to talk about Kamei Glass, which had a tremendous impact on the Japanese glass market and significantly expanded it.

The oldest catalog I have is from 1989 (Showa 64 / Heisei 1).

Looking at the catalog, they imported from over 10 domestic handmade glass factories and artisans, processing factories, and glass factories worldwide such as France, Germany, Hungary, Romania, Taiwan, and Korea. Not only did they import glass manufactured by various factories and makers, but Kamei Glass also designed products and outsourced manufacturing to various sourcing partners. As a fabless company, they handled processing, inspection, and setup, and positioned themselves as a manufacturer, performing product planning, product development, wholesale, and sales. They broadly developed their brand under the name Kamei Glass. Kimoto Glass is a small company incomparable to Kamei Glass, but we are learning from Kamei Glass's branding, product development, product sourcing, planning ideas, and actions, and we are producing glasses with a worldview that can only be expressed by Kimoto Glass.

I will talk about Kamei Glass products and the factories and artisans involved in their production, to the extent that I understand them based on the catalog.

The top page features the revived Satsuma Kiriko, which I talked about last time. Satsuma Kiriko was devastated and discontinued by the bombardment of the British fleet during the Anglo-Satsuma War, but it was revived in 1985 (Showa 60). Many of the current Satsuma Kiriko artisans in Kagoshima continue to produce it following the lineage of Kamei Glass. The glass bases were produced by Asahi Glass in Osaka and Yamaya Glass in Chiba, and Edo Kiriko artisans and Osaka Kiriko artisans processed the cut glass, which was then sold as Satsuma Kiriko. Later, there was also a period when it was produced not only in Japan but also in overseas factories.

Because items produced in Osaka cannot be called Edo Kiriko, Kamei Glass called them Edo Bidoro and developed cut glass products in two colors, indigo and crimson. Especially for crimson, they used a more expensive material (base) called Kinaka, which uses gold.

Items developed under the series name Nagasaki Glass were made of blown glass, with gold leaf applied to colored glass, or patterns expressed by sandblasting. These products were also produced by Asahi Glass in Osaka and Yamaya Glass in Chiba. Although it is not clear which factory, the craftsmanship for making sake carafes (chiro-ri) is superb.

Currently, the only factory capable of producing these chiro-ri is Soejima Glass in Saga, which sells them as Bizen Bidoro.