Josef Riedel, The Elder		JOSEF RIEDEL, THE ELDER(6th Generation) Josef Riedel The Elder turned out to be an extremely talented person, becoming his uncle's assistant and ultimately inheriting the company. Josef Riedel The Elder, 6th generation (1816-1894) had great gifts, and the fact that that he was born in the time of the industrial revolution, proved to be very much in his favour. He left the romantic traditional production places where the glass was melted using furnaces heated by wood in the Bohemian forests, and settled in Polaun. Here he was able to import coal, when the railway came in 1877, which was less expensive and more efficient than wood. The railway assured that the enormous amount of goods produced could travel quickly and safely to his customers. Josef employed 1200 people at his time. His main production was coloured glass beads and blanks (glass not shaped into finished form), which were cut and polished in the small family workshops. The goods were ordered and sold through trading companies. The distribution of the Riedel goods reached as far as India and South America. This distribution through the trading companies had the disadvantage that the Riedel name never became a brand in the 19th century as the trading companies sold the goods under their own names. Johann Christoph Riedel (1st) Johann Carl Riedel (2nd) Johann Leopold Riedel (3rd) Anton Leopold Riedel (4th) Franz Xaver Riedel (5th) Josef Riedel, The Elder (6th) Josef Riedel, The Younger (7th) Walter Riedel (8th) Claus Josef Riedel (9th) Georg Josef Riedel (10th) Laetizia Riedel (11th) Maximilian Josef Riedel (11th)