Last week I took two trips to the Yamashina tonoko and jinoko company. The owner, Mr. Shindo, is 77 years old and has been running the family business with his younger brother for 55 years. The company was started in 1906 according to the owner and he is the 4th generation to run it. I asked him if there was no one to take over the company and that is the case. The land on which he has the factory and his house sits on 1200 tsubo, a tsubo is 3.3 meters sq, about 1225 tsubo is one acre. That is a large plot of land since it is only 15 minutes from J.R. Kyoto station. When his great grandfather bought the land 120 years ago and built the house in which Mr. Shindo still lives there were no other houses around. Now he is surrounded by Kyoto city. When he was a child he said there were about 20 companies making both jinoko and tonoko and now his was the last. I didn’t realize the number of different industries which use both materials. Of course lacquer ware and kintsugi but also many others included the Nishijin weavers for their kinshi and ginshi, gold and silver thread.

The pictures are from the factory. It is much smaller than I expected. There are some roller machines, sieving machines, and then tall, probably bagging hoppers.