Chinese firecrackers were typically ½ to 2 inches long, and approximately ¼ inch in diameter, and were charged with black powder. Mandarin crackers produced a less loud, a duller thud, compared to modern flash light crackers. Mandarin crackers produced a dimmer, less brilliant flash when they exploded also. Individual mandarin crackers were most often braided into “strings” of varying lengths, which when ignitied, exploded in rapid sequence. Generally, the strings (some times containing as many as several thousand crackers) would be hung from an overhead line before ignition. Most mandarin crackers were colored all red and did not generally have designs or logos decorating their exterior surface (aka “shells wraps”). Occasionally a few yellow and green …show more content…
only small percentage of brands lasted more than a year a year or two. Collectors now seek the various labels from the era. Until the mid-1980s firecrackers production was low-tech. they were homemade, beginning with rolling tubes. Once the firecrackers were rolled by hand (commonly from newspaper) and labeled, and then filled with powder, their ends were crimped and fuses inserted, all by hand. These finished firecrackers were usually braided into “strings” and sold in packs which came in many sizes, from the very small (called “penny packs” containing as few as 4 to 6 firecrackers) to the most common size packs (containing 16 to 20 crackers per pack), to larger packs (containing 24, 30, 40, 50, 60, 72, 90, 100, and 120 firecrackers), to huge “belts” and “rolls” (packages containing strings of several hundred to several thousand crackers- phantom firecrackers sells rolls as large 16,000 firecrackers[18]).