Great History of Lacquer Production in Japan

There are only 2 companies making lacquer disks in the world. You know, without lacquer disks, there will be no vinyl records. It is that important BUT there only 2 facilities in the entire world!

As you know, in 2020, one of those 2 companies, Apollo Trusco US had a tragic incident. Their entire lacquer production facility was destroyed by fire. All people in the industry were in panic, thinking that there would be no vinyl records...

BUT, the other small Japanese company called Public Record Japan came in rescuing this tragic situation. They worked around the clock serving these desperate needs all over the world.

Public Record is a small company located in a kind of remote area called Kamiina, Nagano prefecture. The president of the company Mr. Okuda founded the company in 1976.  The 1st Japanese lacquer disk production facility got many orders from all over Japan for many years. But when the CD era came, the orders stopped and their sales went down to 1/10 of the peak time...Mr. Okuda thought of closing the company but decided to continue making lacquer disks no matter what. He told the other core members of the company,

"If there is one person needing our lacquer disk, we shall make one lacquer disk and fulfil his need."

The company survived during these difficult times and the vinyl trend came back in the 2000. Since then the sales of lacquer disks have gone up again and now, the lacquer disk production is their main business again.

I really respect the company's founder Mr. Okuda! Here is their web site in English. They put a short video to show how they make lacquer disks!

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