Vintage (1950s?) tin Spinning top toy With Rockets & Spacemen: 19,300 ppm Lead (90 ppm is unsafe)

Introduction (for those new to this website):

Tamara Rubin is a federal-award-winning independent advocate for consumer goods safety and a documentary filmmaker. She is also a mother of Lead-poisoned children, her sons were acutely Lead-poisoned in 2005. Since 2009 Tamara has been using XRF testing (a scientific method used by the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission) to test consumer goods for toxicants (specifically heavy metals), including Lead, Cadmium, Mercury, Antimony, and Arsenic. All test results reported on this website are science-based, accurate, and replicable. Items are tested multiple times, to confirm the test results for each component. Tamara’s work was featured in Consumer Reports Magazine in February of 2023.

Whenever I take pics for my website, one of my kitties seems to get in the way! This one is Dumbledore!

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Vintage (1950s?) Tin Spinning top toy With Rockets & Spacemen: 19,300 ppm Lead
No brand marking or maker noted.

When tested with an XRF instrument, this toy had the following readings:

Lead (Pb): 19,300 +/- 500 ppm
Chromium (Cr): 4,701 +/- 209 ppm
Iron (Fe): 889,600 +/- 1,900 ppm
Titanium (Ti): 75,400 +/- 1,000 ppm
Cobalt (Co): 5,982 +/- 1,446 ppm
Magnesium (Mn): 3,198 +/- 598 ppm
If a metal is not listed it was not detected.

The amount of Lead considered illegal (and unsafe) in a newly manufactured toy made today is anything 90 ppm Lead or higher in the coating. Of particular interest on this toy is the amount of wear on the bottom. A signifiant amount of the Lead painted decoration has worn off through normal use (see image below).

IF you own one of these vintage toys, I implore you to NOT let the children in your life play with it. (Thank you!)

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