Vintage Fisher Price Little People Yellow School Bus Toy, c. 1984.
Yellow & Red Plastic.
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:
Yellow Plastic of School Bus:
(tested for a minimum of 60 seconds)
- Lead (Pb): 2,953 +/- 59 ppm
- Cadmium (Cd): Non-Detect/Negative
- Mercury (Hg): Non-Detect/Negative
- Arsenic (As): 344 +/- 37 ppm
- Chromium (Cr): 1,106 +/- 85 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 239 +/- 15 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 80 +/- 23 ppm
- Titanium (Ti): 1,548+/- 262 ppm
- If a metal is not listed it was not detected by the XRF instrument.
Orange Wheels Of School Bus:
- Only metal detected: Iron (Fe): 28 +/- 12 ppm
White Eyeballs Of School Bus:
- Lead (Pb): 16 +/- 5 ppm
- Barium (Ba): 134 +/- 83 ppm
- Bromine (Br): 5 +/- 2 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 480 +/- 21 ppm
- Copper (Cu): 92 +/- 17 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 132 +/- 27 ppm
- Titanium (Ti): 13,500 +/- 500 ppm
Test over metal grommet on hood of bus:
- Lead (Pb): 2,451 +/- 90 ppm
- Arsenic (As): 210 +/- 63 ppm
- Chromium (Cr): 184 +/- 39 ppm
- Selenium (Se): 207 +/- 33 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 33,700 +/- 600 ppm
- Copper (Cu): 194 +/- 63 ppm
- Nickel (Ni): 38 +/- 22 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 93,200 +/- 1,300 ppm
- Titanium (Ti): 337 +/- 123 ppm
*The amount of lead that is considered toxic in the substrate (base material) of a newly manufactured item made today and intended for use by young children is anything 100 ppm lead or higher.
- Vintage toys were not regulated for total lead content as detectable with an XRF.
- Advice: 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.
- A LeadCheck swab (or similar reactive agent swab test to test for lead) will not generally work on an item like this. That type of testing methodology was invented and designed primarily for detecting lead in painted surfaces (like house paint.) [What can I test with a LeadCheck swab? 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.
Click the image below to see the XRF test results of another popular vintage Fisher Price toy!
[Same color vintage plastic but COMPLETELY DIFFERENT test results!]
I really thought that only painted wood toys were a concern for lead! Had no idea that the plastic ones I kept were a risk as well. Thank you for posting this! Will check ours…
Hi Teresa,
Thank you for commenting. Most plastic toys will not test positive with a home test kit if they have Lead. Here’s a post about that: https://tamararubin.com/2019/04/asktamara-are-the-3m-swabs-sufficient-to-test-the-surfaces-of-toys-is-it-better-than-nothing/
Tamara
Oh my gosh, I had this exact one when I was a child! Thank you for the information!
What does lead poisoning mean? What does it do?
Hi Inge – here’s my “start here” post. You might want to start by reading the posts discussing symptoms: https://tamararubin.com/2019/12/start-here/
Tamara
Thank you so much for the work you do! I discovered your page by accident after my son fell in love with this bus. His model is a bit older, maybe 60’s, with wooden inserts for the chairs. I’m assuming the older model would be just as much od a hazard for lead?
Thank you,
Col
I noticed this other post that the older bus is actually one of the rare “safe” vintage items. I was excited until I realized mine was the 1980’s edition. Yours may be okay!
https://pin.it/NT1qAMn
Hi, Col. I noticed this other post showing that the older version appears to be one of the rare “safe” vintage toys! So yours may be okay. I was excited until I realized I had the 80’s edition.
https://tamararubin.com/2017/11/vintage-1970s-fisher-price-school-bus-toy-35-ppm-lead/