62 | History of Glass: Japanese Glass Manufacturers and Handmade Glass Factories (32)

Kamei Glass, which was a leading glass wholesaler in Japan, procured products from numerous factories, manufacturers, and other domestic and international partners, and also produced products under Kamei Glass's own planning.

They also traded with handmade glass factories such as Koshida Crystal, Tsuge Glass, and Asahi Glass, and sold numerous glass products, but unfortunately, all of them have now gone out of business. Regrettably, I have never visited these factories, and I cannot find any information about them online. Please give me some time, as I will ask senior members of the industry and upload the information here.

Yamaya Glass, which manufactured glass in Funabashi City, Chiba Prefecture, was founded in 1892 (Meiji 25) and was one of Japan's leading handmade glass factories. It was a wonderful factory that produced a wide variety of items, from large blown vases to small milk pitchers, with many craftsmen. Unfortunately, this factory also went out of business in the early 2000s (Heisei 12).

They not only melted soda glass but also crystal glass, and had a wide range of color variations, making them a versatile factory that could, in a sense, produce anything. They produced numerous artists, including Kuniaki Kurokawa, who is now active as an artist.

They created glass using various techniques, such as double-layered colored glass used for Edo Kiriko, blowing glass by coating it with colored powder, and incorporating rod-shaped glass to create linear designs.

Even with excellent craftsmen and production equipment that supported many techniques, Yamaya Glass, unfortunately, went out of business.

As I mentioned before, in the 1950s, there were as many as 500 or 600 handmade glass factories in Japan, concentrated in Tokyo and Osaka. The working environment was a harsh, labor-intensive workplace with long hours, often referred to as "3K" (Kiken, Kitsui, Kitanai - dangerous, demanding, dirty). Additionally, there were melting furnaces that melted glass at 1500 degrees Celsius, so the heat was immense. Burns and injuries were common. However, with the introduction of automated manufacturing machines from America, Japan entered the era of mass production in the 1960s. Handmade glass by craftsmen could not compete at all with machines that could produce large quantities of uniform quality glass. As a result, many handmade glass factories rapidly went bankrupt and closed down. As you know, there are currently only three handmade glass factories left in Tokyo, and fewer than ten nationwide.

The handmade glass factories that remain today are those that produce specialized glass that cannot be made by machines, such as glass with a thickness of 0.9 mm, multi-colored glass, and wine glasses with slender stems.