Why are there so many brands of "Thunder Bomb" firecrackers?

[BillRoss]

I would have assumed that "Thunder Bomb" would be a registered trademark but there are a number of competing brands labeled "Thunder Bomb". Is there maybe only one TB but resold to various companies who add there own label? If not, does the quality vary between brands? Is there an original TB brand that still exists today?

[vegassalute]

I would have assumed that "Thunder Bomb" would be a registered trademark but there are a number of competing brands labeled "Thunder Bomb". Is there maybe only one TB but resold to various companies who add there own label? If not, does the quality vary between brands? Is there an original TB brand that still exists today?

Frustrating isn't it? I've thought the same thing. I have TBs that sound nothing like other TBs.

[countryboy7978]

Don't hold me to this but here is my take on this. Thunder Bomb was a Chinese sub-brand of flash firecrackers from the Horse factory. They started coming into the country in the early 1970's and you will see the various shell wraps associated with the Horse brand factory. The daisy shell wrap Thunder Bombs along with the confetti wraps were some of the first Thunder Bombs to come out. They were a true class 5 cracker with up to 2 grains of flash powder. Later in the 70's you saw the arrival of the red and blue with white stars which was the most common shell wrap of the time period. All of these firecrackers were crimped on both the bottom and the fuse end. The flash powder load varied but was typically between 1 and 1.5 grain. During the mid 1980's there was a black shell wrap with bomb logos that was seen in Thunder Bomb and Cherry Bomb brand firecrackers. This load also varied between heavy and relatively light but were a favorite with many pyros at the time.

In the 1980's you also saw the Tiger factory making Thunder Bombs which typically had the star wraps and were usually of slightly lower quality than the Horse brand version. The only other version of Thunder Bomb during the DOT Class C period was Flying Fairy brand which was low quality and much less common than the other two. For what I know, the Horse and Tiger factories were owned by the Chinese government.

After the DOT era ended in 1993, coupled with the deregulation of the fireworks industry in China not long after, allowed dozens of private labels to exist. Today when you see Thunder Bomb it's just a generic name that the factory is using. I've seen Thunder Bomb private labels by Phantom, Liberty Bell, Boomer, Dominator, Big, Shogun, and others. They are not the original. Most are all red with no shell wrap at all, all of them to my knowledge have clay sealing the ends and either sawn or smashed ends. They are made in whatever factories are making firecrackers today and wrapped with the private labels. The original Thunder Bomb is popular with collectors and nostalgic pyros who grew up with that label, and while they are relatively easy to obtain at conventions and swap meets, their price has steadily increased. If you want real Thunder Bombs, make sure they say DOT Class C Common Fireworks. You'll also want to look for the Caution - Explosive rather than the newer Warning- Explosive label. This will all but guarantee that you get crimped firecrackers with all paper fuses and slightly heavier loads than 50mg.

I hope this answers some questions.

[nayslayer]

Great info, thanks

[vegassalute]

Great feedback. I had no idea!

[PyroJoeNEPA]

Countryboy--you are an amazing source of knowledge! Thanks for your input.

[countryboy7978]

No problem guys. I have pictures of my bricks but I can't get them to post here.

[BillRoss]

I hope this answers some questions.

It does indeed answer my questions. Thanks very much! I'm still very new to this and couldn't understand why there were so many called Thunder bomb. But you cleared it up nicely.

In the brief 2 months that I have been studying fire works I have noticed similar things. Many companies market a small repeater called "Garden in Spring" and a small mortar called "Festival Balls". I assume the same kind of stuff applies to them.

[countryboy7978]

Back in the 70's, 80's and early 1990's apparently there were only a handful of government owned fireworks brands. If you grew up in the DOT era of fireworks or remember it there were about half a dozen main brands. Horse brand/Tiger Head brand, Red Lantern/Angel, Link Triad, West Lake, Flower Basket, Peacock and Beihai/Flying Dragon. There may have been a few more but these were the main ones. Many of these factories made items whose names still live on today. Items like Garden in Spring, Color Pearls, Saturn Missiles, Festival Balls, Killer Bees, Moon Travelers, and Texas Pop still live on today as simply generic items made by multiple factories. While there were several private labels in the 1980s such as Phantom, Black Cat, Atomic (Cherry Bomb & M80 brand), NCI (Black Panther/Grizzly), Herbies, and TNT/China Pyrotechnics who had items made by these main factories, there were few in comparison to today of private label imports. Today there are hundreds of private labels and therefore dozens of rewraps

[PyroManiacs]

Wow, so much info! Its almost hard to believe that this all happened with little ol' firecrackers.

[halk]

Don't think the original question has been answered. I'm just guessing, but perhaps the words Thunder Bomb cannot be registered. Or maybe the Horse Factory didn't bother to register it, as Horse was their brand, not Thunder Bomb? Its almost like trying to register generic terms like flash salute or electric sparkler.