Elias Greiner Vetters Sohn
The constancy of the village glass works eventually earned it the name of the Mother Glasshut. On the one hand, the hut existed and ran day and night in one location for 300 years. And glass makers who were born into working there and apprenticed there, moved throughout the region and founded other glassworks. In the spirited development of the town of Lauscha the story of Elias Greiner Vetters Sohn and his “Seppenhuette” are a classic success story. Inserts itself seamless the story of that in 1820 established firms "of Elias Greiner cousin son" and its glass cottage, the "Seppenhuette". That glass is still being produced today is probably due in a large part to the creative and entrepreneurial power of this family.
The invention of the Glass Marble
Elias Greiner produced first of all glass enamel colours for painting on glass and china using a self invented grinding mill that he set up. On the 15th of May 1849, he received a patent on the invention of "artificial semi-precious and precious stone balls". This was the invention of the glass marble. The business suddenly took an unexpected upswing. The family’s efforts went into trying to produce as many marbles as possible and for this they felt that they needed to build a new facility. After a great deal of effort and lobbying, Elias Greiner Vetters Sohn finally received the permission to build his new glassfactory.
n September 1853 this glass hut was built – today’s Farbglashuette. At first it had 5 furnaces, than it was expanded to 10 ovens, to accommodate the production of colored rods and tubes once the concession was granted to produce them. A great milestone in the further development of the glass hut was the invention of Kryolith Glass. This glass created the basis for human Eye Prosthetics.
The glassfactory, which was constructed entirely out of wood, went up in flames in April 1894. Obviously the company was a great success and was also on a sound basis, and so they were able to use the misfortune to their advantage and in fact turn it into an advantage for the further development of the company. Therefore, as soon as a half a year later, on January 10, 1895, 300 years to the day that the first glassfactory in Lauscha was built by his ancestor, the newly built solidly constructed glassfactory stood, fully operational.
Over time, the production line-up changed a great deal. As bottles and containers for medicines colorful luxury glass and art glass were eliminated, the roster was filled with glass marbles and rods and tubes. The basis for this addition to the production line-up lay in the fact that Lauscha and the surrounding area had a burgeoning home industry. In Lauscha, the rods and tubes made in the glass hut would be worked at home in front of the torch to become beads, Christmas ornaments, and small works of art.
The hut accepted the articles made at home before the torch, and founded a their own publishing firm in order to promote their wares, and with that, they created the perfect set of prerequisites for commercial success so that Lauscha glass products could be sold worldwide.
The time of the World Wars
The first world war, with the accompanying world economic crisis and inflation caused serious problems for the traditional business. In order to avoid a decline, Otto Greiner, decided to augment the assortment with some new products. He expanded into making such products as battery tubes, panorama balls, the famous garden gazing balls and paperweights. The second World War brought even larger economic impediments, but Otto Greiner found his way through the crisis. Because he could not run the large melting ovens, he had to come up with an idea. With indefatigable enthusiasm and energy, he built his own torch Glassblowers’ shop with 30 jobs. His workers used the rods and tubes that were still in the warehouse, and they made vessels, vases, animals and figures – whatever was popular at that time. Then in 1946, producton in 2 of the large furnaces was once again possible, and the raw materials needed for the flameworkers in his hut, and in the home studios, could once again be produced in the hut.
As a result of the World War II, many specialists came in great numbers from Silesia to Thuringia. Soon they were contributing their exceptional skills to the production in the hut, and as a result, extremely good hollow glass makers were trained in the hut, and the hut was able to move in another direction. In the 1950’s the glassfactory developed professionally and commercially very positively, but it could not escape the political facts of the German Democratic Republic. The family of Elias Greiner Vetters Sohn had to follow the course of history, and in 1959 the company began to have national participation.
The Farbglashuette in the time of the German Democratic Republic
{mosimage}This was the start of a new chapter in the story of the "Seppenhuette". In April 1972 the business passed completely over to the state, as a result of the political and economic restrictions against people owning property and businesses and became VEB (Volks Eigener Betrieb) Farbglaswerk Lauscha, which means that it was supposedly owned by the people and not by an individual, when in fact it was owned and run by the communist party. It was decided to dismantle the old glass hutte and to build a newer, more modern color glass production facility on the same site. The production line up still would include rods and tubes, but it would also include finished commercial lighting and different glass items that would be further processed at another facility.
A large part of production and delivery program was the special glass tubing for making artificial human, animal and doll eyes. In 1980 a program for businesses was carried out called the business organization measures act, whereby smaller businesses were combined to form larger businesses in order to increase the prosperity of the state. In the South Thuringian region 5 separate concerns combined to form VEB Glass Art Lauscha/Thuringia. The heart of this business was the Farbglashuette Lauscha, with approximately 780 employees. The company was very successful, especially at exporting to other countries, where their low prices made them very competitive.
The Farbglashuette today
 The German reunification had serious effects on the Farbglashuette. The massive business model enforced by the state, crumbled, and VEB Glass Art Lauscha decomposed again into a row of smaller, independent businesses. The Farbglashuette became a business of the trust agency Suhl. The efforts of the trust were arranged in the early nineties under the principle that the glass hut should be privatized as soon as possibly. The first de-nationalization failed and the glassfactory stood shortly before bankruptcy. It seemed as if a hundred year old tradition would come to an end. The decision that the Hildesheim entrepreneur Gerhard Bürger would receive the hut came in May 1995.
This was a lucky chance for the Lauscha glass-makers, because the new concept for the hut was not just to keep their jobs, but to also make necessary investments in technology and facilities to improve the hut. The external appearance of the Farbglashuette changed a great deal in the following years and the “heart of Lauscha” changed on the inside too. Fundemental changes were made to the sales areas, and a new restaurant was added. A completely new experience happened for the glass makers in January 1996, when the first guided tours through the hut for tourists were offered.
On September 9, 1999, the Farbglashuette opened a new "experience world" consisting of a multimedia tour, a sales room and a restaurant, called "where glass illuminates the world". Under this motto, visitors to the Farbglashuette in Lauscha were able to tour the hutte from 1999 to 2005, and have a behind the scenes look at the traditional Lauscha glass-makers’ art. Tens of thousands of individual guests and also bus tours appeared enthusiastically at the Farbglashuette’s door. In 2006, a complete relaunch of the tourist area of the Farbglashuette was designed and executed. 17 handwork companies most located in Lauscha were contracted to do the renovations, and reshaped the visitor area of the Farbglashuette in a short two months during February and March 2006 while the company remained open for business. Under the new motto "On the trail of glass", a new, spectacular visitor’s tour has become a magnet for visitos since its opening in April 2006.
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