May 23, 2012

Firework Art

The things you find when you are blogging …..

As I arrive at work every day at Epic Fireworks Ltd in Tankersley, I think what am I going to write about today and this usually means searching for anything newsworthy or historical in relation to fireworks and their background. Today though I found a fantastic new site called ‘Firework Art’ which is dedicated to this very thing.

They have areas dedicated to the making of fireworks, the history, artwork and images from yesteryear, safety advice and in particular the background of some of our oldest manufacturing companies which used to make this once most seasonal of products.

Because many of the older companies did not keep any of their old records, it has been down to the thousands of pyro collectors to share their finds with others to give us a bigger picture.

Nowadays, pyro memorabilia is big business and the hardened collectors will think nothing of spending a couple of hundred pounds at a time on some of the rarer pieces.

Once, this origin of cottage industries had little or no information in print as the mix recipes, chemical formulae and costings for the best quality raw materials were passed from father to son.

There are also links on this site to original artworks from the likes of Lion, Pains, Astra and Rainbow to name but a few. They were as you will no doubt be able to see very simple originally because they were when all said and done going to be set alight!! However, as manufacturing of labels improved and more colour was added into the mix, they went from being the usual (if a little boring) brown or plain dyed wrappers with basic safety instruction to the ones of today which as we know from personal experience take months to consider and get ‘just right’.