A forgotten product: The glass that was almost indestructable
The story of ‘Superfest’, an extremely durable, east-german drinking glass that was too durable
At the beginning of the 1970s, restaurant owners across the country complained about a shortage of drinking glasses and rumors, that the people had to drink their beer out of paper cups, had reached the government officials of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). After taking into consideration of the limited and dwindling resources of the country on the edge of the soviet union, it was decided that a more robust type of glass shall be developed that can withstand the daily use in restaurants or bars for longer periods of time.
Development started in 1975 and in 1977 the efforts in research & development culminated in the GDR patent number 157966, a glass manufacturing process that resulted in a product called “Ceverit”, which in hopes of creating a high selling export product, was also registered internationally (for example US patent nr 4397668).
“Ceverit” glass boasted a lifetime of at least 5 times that of regular glass at the time — it even survived multiple drops onto stone surfaces. In fact, the operations manager of the manufacturing plant used to demo this to visitors and potential buyers by just throwing a glass at the…
