Ide Zentaro (male, 1898-1929)
His grandfather, Zen’ emon, and his father, Mataemon, were also pottery dealers, so in 1897, at the age of 19, Zentaro took over the family business, Kyuryudo studio, and opened a branch in Kanazawa the following year.
In 1900, he established Kutani Ceramics, Ltd. (Kutani-Tojiki, Ltd.)
In 1903, he established a branch office in Kobe for the purpose of export.
In 1906, in order to improve on the primitive method of making Kutani ware clay, he established the Kutani Raw Stone Crushing Company in Terai with Wataya Heibei, Ishizaki Shigeru and others, and began manufacturing Kutani ware clay using a mechanical method learned from Germany, powered by a hydraulic turbine.
In 1908, he established a branch office in San Francisco, U.S.A., and put his younger brothers Tetsuzo and Matasaku in charge of management, with his younger brother Bunsaku in charge of the Kobe branch, Japan.
They traveled to San Francisco every other year to inspect and design fashionable products, which were then manufactured in Terai, Japan. This system continued until 1941, when the company entered World War II.
In 1910, Terai began direct trade with the United Kingdom on the occasion of the Japan-Britain Exposition.
In 1914, the Kutani Raw Stone Crushing, Ltd. (Kutani genseki hasai, Ltd.) was converted to a hard ceramics manufacturing business using ceramic stones from the Hattori Mine as raw materials. The World War I cut off the export of hard ceramic tableware from European countries to Southeast Asia. As a result, Japan was flooded with orders for tableware for Southeast Asia. To meet this strong demand, the company changed its name to Kaga Ceramics, Ltd. (Kaga Seitojo, Ltd.) in 1917 with a capital of 300,000 yen.
In 1929, Kaga Ceramics, Ltd. was on the verge of the Great Depression and applied for the Corporate Reorganization Law. In January of that year, Ide Zentaro passed away suddenly.
His elder brother, Ide Zenro, and younger brother, Ide Zenya, joined Kaga Ceramics, Ltd. In 1971, the company entered into a capital alliance with Nihon Toki (now Noritake Co., Ltd.). In 1995, the company changed its name to Noritake Ide, and Ide Shunichi, who was president at the time, retired as vice president, but was replaced by Noritake Co., Ltd. in 2001.
