The HercuGlass Guarantee

??? Do you guarantee HercuGlass against breakage?
That's an excellent question because glassware manufacturers generally do not guarantee against breakage. Some will replace a "chipped" rim or base but if you read the fine print it says "Guarantee does not cover breakage". An example from a well known manufacturer states: "The 25 year limited guarantee "does not cover broken glassware or any glassware that is damaged as a result of improper care or handling". Another well known retailer says: "You Break It, We Replace It. FREE". - - - However the finer print indicates that the break must be due to a "manufacturing defect", and that subjecting the glass to high temperatures, pressure or impact voids the claim. And it also turns out that a fairly steep shipping and handling charge is added to "free". The reasons for all the caveats is that glass does break - even the most highly strengthened glass - - and normal glass breaks fairly easily. Companies manufacturing normal glass would quickly go out of business with full guarantees.

So why the long preamble to our answer? We want you to compare our honest but "limited" guarantee against any competing retailer or manufacturer. Anyway .......................
The short answer is yes! But we want to be forthright with you. These are newly developed products and we do not yet have sufficient statistics to let us predict how often a particular glass design will break under a wide variety of use conditions. We do know the glasses are the strongest available, and that they perform much better than normal glass under laboratory tests. So, we want to be fair to our customers, but cautious. We guarantee our products against breakage under normal handling and we will replace any item broken item at a reduced price that is a good deal for you, but which covers most of our costs, but not free. We count on the customer to be reasonable, and not return glassware that has been severely mishandled or that was part of a Jewish wedding and did not survive the stomping of a foot. (Or for that matter, a Russian wedding in which the glass was thrown into the fireplace.) Later, when we have more data, we hope to be able to provide an even better guarantee. We have two different guarantees, depending on customer needs and uses. The first is for individuals and families who generally buy less than 12 glasses of a particular type and who do not use the glasses as often as a food service establishment. The 2nd is for industrial customers buying a larger number of a product, using it more often and where handling conditions vary widely.

For our individual and family customers:
If a HercuGlass product breaks from normal handling during the first year we will replace the item at 40% off your purchase price with free shipping. All you you need do is send us the broken glass with an explanation of how it broke. We use the broken glass to determine why it broke so that we can improve our products in the future. (To see how we do this visit the following web sites on "Fractography" of glass - It's kind of like "CSI HercuGlass".)
http://www.astm.org/Standards/C1678.htm
http://www.doitpoms.ac.uk/tlplib/fracture/fracture.php
http://www.glass-ceramics.uni-erlangen.de/Research/Selected2005/GlassDateien/Project_g1.htm

For our restaurant and other food service customers:
At the sale we ask you to provide us with an estimate of what % breakage you generally observe in a 6 month period and the major cause of breakage. We will then guarantee that our glassware will save you money!! If breakage is not reduced enough to cover the difference between our glasses and those you have been using, we will cover the difference.

??? How much money can I save with HercuGlass?
ANS: Tough question! The answer really depends on the number of glasses you buy - use. But let's go through the numbers, first for a family and second for a food service business.

For the family:
The real advantage to HercuGlass for a family is the increased safety. Fewer breaks cause fewer injuries. That is most important. Unless your family and friends include a large number of "Klutzes" you probably won't save a lot of money, but you will save. Statistics show that about 35 % of the wine glasses purchased in the United States break within the first 6 months. Assume you buy 12 wine glasses. When purchasing 12 at a time our glasses are about 40% more expensive than similar un-strengthened glass. HercuGlass will break under severe conditions, but on average we expect less than 10 % breakage in one year. So, in the long run you will save, but we will not make you rich.

For the Food Service Industry:
Here savings due to increased employee safety, loss of downtime and glass breakage can be significant. When purchased in quantity, our glasses may be only 20% more costly than your current glassware. Based on our testing and knowledge of glass fracture, we expect that our glassware will experience about between 50 - 80% less breakage than normal glassware - depending on the use and style.