Superfest was an East German brand of nearly indestructible drinking glasses that promised to revolutionize the industry but went bankrupt at the end of the Cold War. (Here's a video of a Superfest glass being dropped to the floor. Instead of cracking, it bounces.) They are highly desirable by collectors, and now a Berlin-based Kickstarter-funded effort is underway to bring the brand to life.
From The Guardian:
Its founders, Paul Kupfer and Georg Tarne, have crowdfunded €251,139 (£215,400) for a production facility that partially draws on Superfest's old GDR-era ion technology.
"Compared to plastic, glass is a material that can be recycled almost as often as you like," says Steve Köhler, who organised Soulbottles' crowdfunding campaign. "It is tasteless and transparent, and it has only one disadvantage: it breaks."
The problem with the original Superfest glass is that its manufacturers worked with modified alumino or borosilicate glass, which is not as easy to recycle as the more common soda-lime glass. So Soulbottles' challenge is to produce glass that is both durable and recyclable.
Soulbottle's August 1 Kickstarter update suggests they've, er, cracked, the challenge:
The new soulbottles ULTRINITY from the series production are up to 10x stronger compared to regular glass and on average can withstand even more. Due to the nature of the manufacturing process, however, there are variations. In our tests, most bottles are 2-12x more durable than regular glass and can withstand most everyday bumps and drops.
However, you should not use them as a replacement hammer. Glass "remembers" drops and impacts in the form of stresses that develop within it. This means a glass bottle is more likely to break on the second drop than on the first. Our goal was to significantly improve the durability of our products, and we are very confident that we have achieved this with this project and your support.
That's great, but it's kind of a bummer that they aren't reviving the Superfest brand, though.
Previously:
• East German advertisements of the 1950s and 1960s
