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Little People, Vintage: as high as 1,466 ppm lead
Both the plastic substrate and painted faces contain unsafe levels of lead. With these little guys that is a big problem, because children ALWAYS seem to pop them in their mouths! And the part that they are most likely to suck on is the head, which is painted with lead paint that can wear off (note the missing paint on the eye and eyebrow of the little green guy pictured here.)
The limit for the total amount of Lead that is considered safe and is allowable in a new/modern item intended for children is 100 ppm in the substrate of an item (the underlying plastic in the case of these vintage toys) and 90 ppm in the paint or coating.
TIP: Avoid all vintage toys! (sorry)
Here are some links to new/modern #LeadFree versions of some similar toys on Amazon!*
Little People Fire Truck
Little People Farm
Little People School Bus
Little People Nativity
For more #SaferChoices for your family, click here.
To make a contribution in support of my independent consumer goods testing and lead poisoning prevention advocacy work, click here.
Thank you for reading and for sharing my posts. As always, please let me know if you have any questions, I will do my best to answer them personally as soon as I have a moment.
Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama
*Amazon links are affiliate links. If you choose to make a purchase after clicking one of these links I will receive a small percentage of what you spend, at no extra cost to you! Thank you!
Hi, I was wondering if you’ve ever tested or heard if vintage Little tikes toys contain toxins? I have the blue roof lt house from the mid 90’s and the little tikes party kitchen from the mid 80’s. thanks
Hi Mary,
I have not tested enough of those to draw a conclusion – sorry!
Tamara
Hello! I’ve got a lot of my husband’s vintage 80’s toys that it looks like my kids shouldn’t be playing with, though the occasional toy (like the farm) is lead free. I’m hoping they can keep playing with a favorite, the Fisher Price Play Family Castle. Have you tested that? (I’ve searched and didn’t find any results.)
Hi, thank you for your work. I am am curious if there is a manufacturer date range to avoid? My grandfather has little people from the 70’s which I assume have high levels of lead. My mom also has little people but hers are from the mid-80’s. Are the little people from the 80’s also testing high?
Pre-2011
The new law require that toys be lead-free was passed in 2008 and became fully enforceable across all types of toys in 2011.
Hello. I was just curious if you had tested the fisher price toy house from around 1980-1985? I used to play with it all the time as a young child, however it did not have the little people nor any of the other accessories. I am worried I could have been exposed to a damaging amount of lead.