It's New Year's Eve, and everyone is talking fireworks, so here, for your enjoyment, is our Hanabi deck.
It is a variant of a standard Hanafuda deck, but instead of flowers, we have pictures of Hanabi ("Fire Flowers") to make up the suits.
The images come from Yokohama Fireworks Company catalogues of the 1880s, produced by the Hirayama Fireworks Factory, No. 60, Otamachi, Shiuchome, Yokohama. ("Factory distant about one mile from our Office")
The proprietor, Jinta Hirayama (平山甚太, 1840-1900), was a pioneer in fireworks design, and is said to have introduced colours into fireworks, which had previously been the colour of gunpowder flame (orange). He also invented the daytime firework, and the underwater firework. His work was imported to Europe and the Americas, and he held the first foreign-registered Japanese patent, decades before the opening of a Japanese Patent Registry. You can read more about him in the Japanese-language Wikipedia page here (there is no English-language page).
By using the account of nineteenth century Japanese fireworks symbolism in Takeo Shimizu's standard reference work*, we could assign the fireworks to flower suits, and bundle them according to the standard Hanafuda set. We have used a Red, Yellow, Blue and White of each Hanabi version for consistency.
Rosette
Rosette Garden
Double-petalled Flower Garden
Relieved-pistil Peony Garden
Peony Garden
Peony
Dahlia Garden
Chrysanthemum Garden
Chrysanthemum
Choji Chrysanthemum
Willow
Triple-petalled Flower
Additionally, we used other fireworks to attribute additional symbolism:
Lantern for the Bright cards
Moon for the Ribbon cards
Lightning for the Tempest card
Dragon for Animal cards
For a full account of these, see the table below
Going through each suit, we have, for January, the Rosette:
For February the Rosette Garden:
For March, a Double-petalled Flower Garden:
For April, Relieved-pistil Peony Garden:
For May, the Peony Garden:
For June, the Peony:
For July, the Dahlia Garden:
For August, the Chrysanthemum Garden:
For September, the Chrysanthemum:
For October, the Choji Chrysanthemum:
For November, the Willow:
(According to Shimizu, the yellow Willow was called the Palm, and was made yellow by the addition of titanium powder)
For December, the Triple-petalled Flower:
Any game played with the standard Hanafuda deck can be played with these cards; only a short time is necessary to learn the conventions.
If you want to buy them, you can get them printed on demand here at Make Playing Cards.
Here is the full deck of 48 cards:
The back of the deck is the cover of one of the catalogues, redrawn:
*Shimizu, Takeo (1981) Fireworks: the Art Science and Technique, Austin, Pyrotechnica Publications .
** Shimizu gives this account of Hanabi: Fireworks do not have frameworks like pictures. Accordingly the composition of fireworks must be specially considered. Fireworks are placed centrally in the space and all firework elements are concentrated towards the centre. Alternatively the elements are allowed to flow out of the centre. This is the rule in firework art, and is suitable for both cases; one flower and a group of several flowers. A group of stars assemble as a flower. Each flower has a different name.
Here is a list of the Hanabi kinds we used in our deck:
A Rosette, or Round Flower, is assembled stars spreading out from a single point |  |
A Flower Garden (or Thousand Flowers) is a lot of small round flowers which appear at the same time |  |
A Chrysanthemum is a round flower, which consists of stars with a tail. |  |
A Peony is a a round flower, which consists of stars with no tail But it is often confused with the chrysanthemum. |  |
A Choji Chrysanthemum is a chrysanthemum with a pistil which is larger in diameter than ordinary pistils. The "Choji" is a kind of chrysanthemum. |  |
A Dahlia (or Cosmos) is a flower of most brilliant stars (Image is of a Dahlia Garden) |  |
A Willow is a modified type of the chrysanthemum, the stars of which have a long burning time and fall with streams of fire dust sparks |  |
A Relieved Pistil is a pistil, which is relieved against petals. (Image is of a Relieved Pistil Peony Garden) |  |
A Double petalled flower is a flower, which has two petals in concentric circles |  |
A Triple petalled flower is a flower, which has three petals in concentric circles |  |
A Lantern is a paper lantern suspended from a parachute, with a bright flare inside |  |
A Moon is a large illuminating flare with a parachute. |  |
A Dragon is a star with a rather large tail. |  |
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