55｜History of Glass: Japanese Glassmakers and Handmade Glass Factories 25

Hello everyone 🎵

Golden Week started last week, and this year, if you manage to take 3 days off, you'll have a 10-day holiday. On the 27th, the first day of the holiday, I enjoyed an adult barbecue with my drinking buddies at a park in my hometown of Matsudo, refreshing myself. I hope you all enjoy your holidays too.

Following on from last week, I’d like to continue talking about Kamei Glass, which had a huge impact on the Japanese glass market and expanded it significantly.

To reiterate, Kamei Glass developed from a wholesaler rather than a manufacturer, operating as a production company that handled its own branding, design, procurement, setup, and logistics. I believe that its business approach, which was slightly different from other manufacturers, had a significant impact on the Japanese glass market and greatly contributed to its expansion.

Following on from last time, I will talk about the import of glass from Czechoslovakia in Eastern Europe during the former Communist era.

During the communist era, Glassexport, a state-owned trading company, was the sole export window for all domestic glass, and in Japan, Meiwa Sangyo, a Mitsubishi Corporation affiliate, held exclusive import, sales, and price control.

After the collapse of the communist regime, each factory began to independently sell and export, and Kamei Glass and various trading companies rushed to import glass from the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

Czech factories included large automated factories like CRYSTALEX and SKLO BOHEMIA, medium-sized ones like POLTAR and Poděbrady, and handmade glass factories like Karolinka. In Slovakia, large automated and handmade glass was produced by RONA, and handmade glass by Kvetna, among many other factories, each creating original glass that leveraged their unique production characteristics.

As symbolized by the epithet "Bohemian crystal," the production technology and craftsmanship of each factory were superb. High-end and delicate glasses, like those from Baccarat in France and Lobmeyr in Austria, were individually blown by highly skilled artisans.

After liberation, with the influx of capital and technology from Germany, Austria, and Russia, glass manufacturing in the Czech Republic and Slovakia grew significantly. However, the absence of state and Glassexport control led to free competition, intensifying cost, technology, and sales competition among factories. This resulted in a wave of consolidation, mergers, bankruptcies, and revitalizations that accelerated into the 2000s (Heisei 12).

Furthermore, with automated and handmade glass flooding the global market from China and Turkey, coupled with rising labor costs and oil prices in the Czech Republic and Slovakia after liberalization, many factories closed down or went bankrupt. Currently, CRYSTALEX and Světlá in the Czech Republic, and RONA in Slovakia, continue to operate successfully.