2) History of uranium glass in Japan
The first person who brought back manufacturing
technology of uranium glass (vaseline glass)
from the USA in 1900 is believed to be Mr.
Takijirou Iwaki, and he might have transfer
the technology to Mr. Magoichi Shimada. In
1901, Shimada Glass has started the first industrial basis manufacturing
of uranium glass in Japan. From 1910s to
1930s, there were many uranium glass makers
mostly in Osaka, such as Shimada Glass, Sasaki Glass(at Tokyo, still in operation), Ishidzuka Glass(at Nagoya, still in operation), Konishi Glass, and so on. They produced all kinds of uranium
glass works, such as flower vases,
dishes,
cups, bottles, clocks, and so on. Besides
decorations and accessaries, there
has been
some industrial use of uranium glasses
in
Japan such as fog lump for lokomotive
and
electric trains, transition piece of
vacuum
tube(not succeeded in Japan) and others, details of
which can be found in English page of JUGCC (Click here).
Also, the detail of the history of uranium
glass in Japan is found in the book Japanese Uranium Glass (see below).
However, during the war era, importing uranium
was prohibited in 1941, and all the glass
factories capable of uranium glass manufacturing
were destroyed by bombing during the World
War II, and the manufacturing capability
was lost for 60 years since then. Currently,
a very limited number of small factories
are trying to restore this capability.(see
below)
|