Josef Riedel the elder was named Glass King of the Iser Mountains and in 1888, he was decorated with the papal Order of Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice. He was an honorary citizen of Wiesenthal an der Neisse as he had given the village land on which to build a church in 1880, and was an honorary citizen of Franzensbad (1858). He was also a member of the Reichenberg Chamber of Commerce, a member of the Committee of the District Office in Tannwald, an honorary curator of the Museum of Northern Bohemia in Reichenberg: the oldest institution celebrating industrial arts in the Czech Republic today and an honorary member of the sixteen other associations in the Iser Mountains and beyond.