Vintage Fisher Price Little People Green Plastic Man: 101 ppm Cadmium + 30 ppm Mercury

Vintage Fisher Price Little People Green Man.
Green plastic body with peach plastic head and painted on face and hair.
Year of Manufacture Unknown (presumed c. 1970s).

To see more vintage Fisher Price items I have tested, click here.

The XRF test results for this exact item (pictured above) are as follows:

Painted Head/Face – Peach Plastic:

• Lead (Pb): Non-Detect/Negative
• Cadmium (Cd): 101 +/- 12 ppm
• Mercury (Hg): 30 +/- 6 ppm
• Arsenic (As):  Non-Detect/Negative
• Barium (Ba): 194 +/- 114 ppm
• Titanium (Ti): 1,674 +/- 297ppm

The thing that bothers me the most about these original vintage “Little People” is their round heads. Children are always putting these round heads in their mouth and sucking on them, and inevitably that is where you find the paint worn off, from their faces and their painted on hair. This is the very part of the doll that is testing positive (on many of these items) for lead, for cadmium and even (as we see here) for mercury – all incredibly toxic contaminants!

Green Plastic of Body

• Lead (Pb): Non-Detect/Negative
• Cadmium (Cd): Non-Detect/Negative
• Mercury (Hg): Non-Detect/Negative
• Arsenic (As):  Non-Detect/Negative
• Bromine (Br): 4 +/- 2 ppm
• Zinc (Zn): 161 +/- 15 ppm
• Copper (Cu): 21 +/- 13 ppm

*The amount of cadmium (Cd) that is considered toxic in a newly manufactured item made today and intended for use by young children is anything 75 ppm cadmium or higher. Some local regulatory agencies have set the cadmium toxicity level for children’s items as low as 40 ppm.

• At the time of manufacture, vintage and antique pieces were not regulated for total lead and cadmium content as detectable with an XRF [in many cases XRF technology did not exist at that time, of course!]
• Advice: Vintage and antique toys often are positive for lead, cadmium and even mercury (as this one is.) Don’t let your children play with vintage toys, as there is really no way for you to know (at home) if these items are toxic or not.
• To learn more about cadmium toxicity, click here.

To learn more about XRF testing, click here.

As always, thank you for reading and for sharing my posts!

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama

Click the image below to see the XRF test results of another popular vintage Fisher Price toy!