Vintage M-80 Silver Salutes.

[displayfireworks1]

I was contacted by a woman in Wisconsin about some old firecrackers for sale. She found me from my YouTube channel. I passed the lead onto a firecracker collector. He only wanted the older Chinese packs. He gave me the old M-80’s. Looking at the price tag on these authenticates them as original. Most like pre-1966. If someone can some information on these please do.
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end of pic post.

[KDirk]

That's a cool find. Have you fired one to test them? Or, if you plan on doing so, it'd be great to see it posted as a video. I'm curious now much of a punch those pack. They predate my birth by probably 10 years, so I've never had the pleasure of shooting any like that. I've heard stories though.

It is strange to see consumer fireworks marked as Made in USA, that's for sure. Other than maybe sparklers, I don't recall ever seeing US made consumer fireworks in my lifetime. By the time I was old enough to pay attention to details like that, virtualoy all consumer pyro was made in China.

[displayfireworks1]

I will eventually make a video and shoot off at least one of them .

[KDirk]

I'll be looking forward to that. On the other hand, it'll probably bug me that I can't get cool stuff like that anymore, since it's simply isn't being made.

[BMoore]

Tri-State Manufacturing was the manufacturing arm of Rozzi Fireworks. My understanding is that for a period of time they held a copyright on the "Silver Salute" name so any other brand had to call them something else. Not sure if these were from that period or not since the "Super" has been added to the name. Either way, these are definitely the real deal, pre-1966 and were very high quality product. I'm anxious to see how well these have held up over time. Imagine, 72 ground salutes for $3.50!

[wingman]

I read an article some years back that the size/dimensions of these tubes for silver salutes was carefully researched and considered for maximum report.

[displayfireworks1]

What surprised me was , I anticipated there would be silver powder inside of the boxes. There does not appear to be any , these must have been made pretty tight back in the day.

[wingman]

I agree! I think the earlier ones didn't have paper end plugs - it was maybe a dallop of waterglass on each end and that's it. Then the waterglass deteriorates over time and a lot of the flash just pours out making a mess in the box. At least with these, there's paper end plugs to keep things in place. I ran into that problem with the old Keystone single shot aerial salutes. A lot had cracks in the waterglass on top of the business end and no paper end cap. They make for nice display pieces albeit without any comp in them!

[displayfireworks1]

I have a old reddish colored waterglass M-80. I suspect they did that to save money. If you ever price out the tubes, the ends plugs are not cheap relative to the cost of the tube. Also it may be the same material they were using to make the Cherry Bombs On the one I have it is interesting to see how it aged. When I find time I'll post a picture.

[displayfireworks1]

Here is one using what appears to be Waterglass end plugs I talked about. With that reddish tint was probably the same material used for the Cherry Bombs. The case looks the same. The way the Waterglass bleed into the case over time authenticates this from that time period, rather than a reproduction.
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I have these side by side with the ones we know are from back in the day with paper plugs for comparison.

[wingman]

Looks like the tan areas of the tube on the left might indicate how far in the waterglass had been filled, then maybe the chemical bled through or wicked up moisture over time causing the tan discoloration?

[RalphieJ]

There were two sizes of the spiral printed silver salutes (ash cans), with no discernable difference in sound (per my defective ears!), one was M-80 sized, the other slightly smaller. The Vineland New Jersey ashcans had clear glue cementing the fuse, while their cherry bombs had the sparkler compound, like the tube on the left. It's alarming to think that these were punched and fused with flash already loaded. Even more alarming is that cherry bombs were DRILLED for fuse insertion, after being charged! Whew! I read once (possibly in a patent publication or an American Fireworks News tech report) that the smaller one was the optimum size for report and flash consumption. Sometimes less is more.

[KDirk]

Hard to believe they were puncturing/drilling and inserting fuses after filling with flash. Even with brass tooling, the impact and/or abrasion from doing so are very risky. I guess they had a process down for it, but I'd not risk post-fusing them if I were rolling my own. Can't really see why a fuse couldn't be installed and secured in place first, then the charge filled and the plugs put in.

[RalphieJ]

Hard to believe they were puncturing/drilling and inserting fuses after filling with flash. Even with brass tooling, the impact and/or abrasion from doing so are very risky. I guess they had a process down for it, but I'd not risk post-fusing them if I were rolling my own. Can't really see why a fuse couldn't be installed and secured in place first, then the charge filled and the plugs put in.

Mass production, baby. BILLIONS, not millions, were produced, assembly line fashion. Dave has posted photos of an abandoned M-80 machine, charging and punching fuse holes were done mechanically in a blast-proof room, quite ingenious. Cherry bombs were made with a 3/4 inch cup set, filled with the binary or trinary components (and sometimes a color star) added separately before mixing, then glued together and put into a rolling machine, (sometimes a cement mixer with the paddles removed) then sawdust and sodium silicate added, then the coloring solution after the coating is completed. The flash was mixed during this coating/rolling process, followed by drying. I've read (again, AFN?) that up to 100 cherries were drilled at a time (I'd pay to see that process!) with the fuses obviously inserted by hand, the Vineland New Jersey fuses were dipped into what appears to be a sparkler mixture which created a tight fillet around the fuse when inserted. The bootleg process post-1966 by organized mobs were a real nightmare. Photos of a busted operation in one of the 5 NYC boroughs are out there on the net, where you can see racks of tubes ready for the charging/fusing process, alongside 30-gallon barrels of flash. Blows were rare, but when they did, they were devastating. A house near Danbury CT. was completely leveled down to the basement, with thousands of M-80's in various stages of completion scattered about. This was the hot melt glue era, a cheap and quick way to plug and fuse without punching holes in the sides of the cases.

[displayfireworks1]

When I was kid my friend had one of these silver cartridge ones not go. How that happened I have no idea. LOL He took it apart. I remember the powder was extremely silver in color. He then made the mistake of lighting it with a match as he held the match. I remember the poof and big cloud of smoke. His uncle took him to the ER . I can still see them drive by with my friend holding his hand out of the window. Part of his hand and a few fingers were burned. I also remember I volunteered to light the powder and he responded “No its mine, I’ll do it”. I do remember the silver color was not like the aluminum I know of today for these mixtures. Curious what year Potassium Perchlorate started being used in place of the chlorate version?
Now that I have these, I am really not sure what to do with them. I’ll make a video here eventually and then what ? They should belong somewhere in a fireworks business for display.

[halk]

Hundreds of flashpowder salutes came on the retail market after Hitt's invented the compound shortly after WWI. At first ehy were a bag inserted into a thin paper tube with no closed ends, and ignited by regular Chinese firecracker fuse. Other configurations soon followed including closed tubes, triangles, spheres, ovals, and squares, with ignition by safer and moisture resistant visco fuse or "fuseless" matchcrackers initiated by rubbing on a rough surface like a kitchen match. The list of trade names like Cherry Bomb, OK, Silver Salute, Flitter Bomb, etc. used on boxes, labels, or printed on the cases is very long. M-80 is just an old military designation for a training device, but several producers used that name on commercial products also.