We must be on a Japanese bug at the moment because our latest blog post is about 1960’s/70’s Sasaki Japanese Glass dishes!

Obscure you may say, but who wants to read about the same items that many others have already covered?



Red? Orange? Blood Orange!

Not expensive items but prices seem to have been rising slightly over the last two years. We’ve had three of these go through the Retro Mojo website and always keep our eyes open for them. A nice cheap collectable from a period that’s been in vogue for a few years now, with a base range of about eight colours and eight shapes, (That we know of), makes these Sasaki glass dishes a nice intro into the world of collecting and a potential full collection of possibly sixty four examples!

ADDITION – Since starting this blog we’ve found Pear, Star, Flower Bowl, Apple and offset oval shapes!



A collection of biomorphic shapes

When we first happened upon Sasaki glass it took a little research to find out what they were and more about them, but the forums and Wayne Stephen’s fantastic 20th Century Glass website solved the mystery for us. As yet we haven’t seen them listed in any of the obvious titles, (Miller’s etc), but they could catch on given that they definitely have a certain collectability about them and that they aren’t overly available in the marketplace.

It’s the great colours of this glass coupled with the white milk glass inclusions throughout that fascinated us. Some examples have a single layer of the white glass under the skin and others have the white fragmented into four or five different pieces. Great displayed under light on black, we think they are definitely worth looking in on in the future if you happen to come across a piece.

Aside from the very obvious characteristics of this glass many examples have a raised base mark, sometimes known as the three S mark, or a label. Even without these present you’ve got a very strong chance of correctly attributing to Sasaki.

Google doesn’t help too much as many don’t know the brand of this glass to list it correctly and Sasaki also still manufacture a huge amount of, mainly, glassware for catering and practical purposes.

A Brief Background on Sasaki Glass

Sasaki Glass Co. Ltd. was established in 1902 and incorporated in 1947. The company is a leading glass tableware manufacturer in Japan and its products includes wine glasses, tumblers and other glasses, plates, ashtrays. The company has seven consolidated subsidiaries, six in Japan and one in the United States.

Told you it was brief!



Base of an orange dish

Often mis-attributed as Sowerby due to the similarities to early 20thC slag pressed glass, naturally due to the prominent white glass mixed with purples, blues etc that is prevalent in slag glass. Murano is also a term that seems to be bandied around these days for all unattributable mid century glass and Sasaki is no different for being mistaken, although as a collector and dealer in mid century glass, among other things, we can’t see any serious link in influence or style to Murano.

Thus far the shapes we have found include Square/Diamond, Mermaid’s Purse, Club, Clover, Flower, Curved triangle and a biomorphic form. Colours we’ve found include yellow, blue, clear, red/orange, amethyst/purple and some green variants.



This one’s for sale on our website

Car boots, charity shops and flea markets are great places to pick these up for a couple of quid, on eBay prices can be £8-12 and dealer’s prices range from £15-25 but can be as high as £40. The only example we’ve currently got listed for sale on Retro Mojo is a bargain price of £18.

Thanks for reading

STOP PRESS –

NEW SHAPE UPDATE!

This one just recently discovered, seen on ebay, unsure what to call it?

A turquoise mermaid’s purse we found

A blood red/orange clover version

This one is also available at Retro Mojo

And a new one we’ve never seen before, an apple shape!

This one’s available at Retro Mojo

And some more recent additions!

Another Shape Update!

This cool pear shape was found at Retro Glass & Beyond

A recent addition to this post, courtesy of Kelly, is this fantastic green example! Many thanks Kelly for sharing your images with us 🙂

1/1/15 – New shapes being uncovered pretty regularly at the mo, we’ve now found stars!

Just when you think there couldn’t be any more Mark found us an alternative apple shape!

And they keep coming! This example found on Depop and described as Murano!