The blower brush was developed in 1958 by Sanai Sano, the founder of our company, and it is one of our representative products that spread all over the world in no time.
After graduating from an elementary school, Sanai came to Tokyo from Yamanashi Prefecture to work as a peddler of fountain pens, and after working at various jobs, he founded U.N. Gomu Shokai (rubber company) in 1946, just after the war. The origin of the company name “U.N” is said that when he consulted with a university professor he knew about the company name, he was told that Japan’s relationship with the U.S. would become more important in the future, so he decided to take the first letters of “USA” and “Nippon” and named the company “U.N”.
The company he was working for dealt in eyedroppers and fountain pen rubbers at the time, but Sanai decided to deal in other products because he felt that doing the same thing would cause trouble. During the confusion of the post-war period, Sanai vaguely thought that Japan would become prosperous and that the time would come when everyone would own a camera and enjoy photography. However, Sanai did not have the knowledge or capital to manufacture cameras, so he decided to come up with and manufacture camera accessories on his own, and introduced products such as blowers, dollies, plastic pins and rubber hoods that suited the times.
The rubber shape of the blower brush was inspired by a compact taken out by a geisha who happened to be sitting in front of him when he took a bus on his way to a hot spring in Hakone.
Even today, with the passing of Sanai and the change from film to digital, the blower brush is still used all over the world.
(Nowadays, it is used not only as a camera cleaning product but also as an industrial product in many other applications.)
In order to prioritize quality, the bristles of the U.N blower brush are manufactured by hand by craftsmen in Japan, and the rubber used for the blower has been natural rubber since it was first developed. The rubber used for the blower has been natural rubber since it was first developed. Inspection, assembly, and packaging are all done in our own factory.
Please use the original blower brush from Japan.