Kamei Glass "Snow Flake Glass" bowl for Kmart

This bowl is 5.5" square and 2.5" high and weighs 1.6 lbs. It is labeled and came with its original box. This was a surprise as it suggests that Kmart was either working directly with an exporter in Japan, "Kamei Glass Osaka", working with the American importer which used "Kamei America Group" as its name or with another entity which also used the term "Kamei" to identify its glass, also probably an exporter/importer.

I have no idea who made this bowl. More commonly known as "foam glass", similar glass was made by Iwata, Kurata and ?, though this glass is much more crudely made than that of Iwata and Kurata. It appears to have been blown into a mold and then perhaps swung to get some irregular height.

Though the box does not say it, the intended use may have been as an ashtray but I suspect it was just a trinket dish.

The label on the bowl says:

Original Design
-------------------------
*Snow Flake*Glass*
-------------------------
KAMEI GLASS
MADE IN JAPAN

I wonder if this piece is indicative of a time when the term "Kamei" was starting to be applied as a generic term for Japanese glass, as opposed to one of the exporter/importers of Japanese glass. At some point there several variations of the word "Kamei" applied to Japanese glass, "Kamay Glass", etc. The term "Kamei" has become quite confusing.

Kmart Corporation was created in 1977 from the Kresge Corporation. My brother-in-law was a manager for Kresge in the 1960s before "dropping out" to become a Baptist minister which he still is doing fifty years later. I suspect this bowl was made circa the 1980s. I was quite surprised to find it.

Kmart:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kmart