To see more character glasses I have tested, click here.
The amount of Lead that is considered illegal in modern items intended for use by children is anything 90 ppm Lead or higher in the paint or coating.
Please avoid giving your children or grandchildren any painted or otherwise highly decorated vintage glassware, as most of this type of product is likely to be at LEAST high Lead, if not also high Cadmium and high Arsenic.
If you *MUST* hold on to something like this, please consider putting your collection in a sealed shadow box (with a note on the back stating that it likely has high levels of Lead and should not be used for food-use purposes.)
If you are concerned about what to do with a glass like this (what’s the potential impact the environment of tossing it in the landfill for example), click here.
When tested with an XRF instrument this glass had the following readings (with each test done for at least 120 seconds/2 minutes.)
Blue Painted Area:
- Lead (Pb): 89,000 +/- 2,300 ppm
- Cadmium (Cd): 1,812 +/- 91 ppm
- Mercury (Hg): Non-Detect / ND
- Barium (Ba): Non-Detect / ND
- Chromium (Cr): 2,486 +/- 146 ppm
- Antimony (Sb): Non-Detect / ND
- Selenium (Se): Non-Detect / ND
- Zinc (Zn): 368 +/- 43 ppm
- Copper (Cu): 109 +/- 46 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 296 +/- 134 ppm
- Titanium (Ti): 12,200 +/- 500 ppm
- Platinum (Pt): 509 +/- 176 ppm
- Cobalt (Co): 6,193 +/- 292 ppm
Continue reading below image.
White Painted Area:
- Lead (Pb): 77,000 +/- 1,700 ppm
- Cadmium (Cd): 3,069 +/- 85 ppm
- Mercury (Hg): Non-Detect / ND
- Arsenic (As): 5,344 +/- 239 ppm
- Barium (Ba): Non-Detect / ND
- Chromium (Cr): 460 +/- 96 ppm
- Antimony (Sb): 103 +/- 56 ppm
- Selenium (Se): Non-Detect / ND
- Tin (Sn): 160 +/- 36 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 122 +/- 17 ppm
- Nickel (Ni): 162 +/- 25 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 197 +/- 53 ppm
- Vanadium (V): 997 +/- 302 ppm
- Titanium (Ti): 17,000 +/- 800 ppm
Green Painted Area:
- Lead (Pb): 129,800 +/- 4,100 ppm
- Cadmium (Cd): 4,134 +/- 231 ppm
- Mercury (Hg): Non-Detect / ND
- Barium (Ba): Non-Detect / ND
- Chromium (Cr): 2,863 +/- 172 ppm
- Antimony (Sb): Non-Detect / ND
- Selenium (Se): Non-Detect / ND
- Zinc (Zn): 2,293 +/- 123 ppm
- Copper (Cu): 957 +/- 89 ppm
- Nickel (Ni): 1,664 +/- 144 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 2,146 +/- 243 ppm
- Titanium (Ti): 13,800 +/- 700 ppm
- Cobalt (Co): 989 +/- 139 ppm
- Magnesium (Mn): 1,392 +/- 312 ppm
Continue reading below image.
Yellow Painted Area:
- Lead (Pb): 112,000 +/- 3,500 ppm
- Cadmium (Cd): 5,587 +/- 310 ppm
- Mercury (Hg): Non-Detect / ND
- Barium (Ba):Non-Detect / ND
- Chromium (Cr): 646 +/- 128 ppm
- Antimony (Sb):Non-Detect / ND
- Selenium (Se): 484 +/- 72 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 2,618 +/- 137 ppm
- Copper (Cu): 331 +/- 65 ppm
- Nickel (Ni): 233 +/- 91 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 480 +/- 168 ppm
- Titanium (Ti): 15,600 +/- 800 ppm
Clear Glass of Bottom of Cup:
- Lead (Pb): Non-Detect / ND
- Cadmium (Cd): Non-Detect / ND
- Mercury (Hg): Non-Detect / ND
- Barium (Ba): Non-Detect / ND
- Chromium (Cr): Non-Detect / ND
- Antimony (Sb): 48 +/- 10 ppm
- Selenium (Se): Non-Detect / ND
- Bromine (Br): 8 +/- 2 ppm
- Zinc (Zn): 19 +/- 9 ppm
- Iron (Fe): 181 +/- 71 ppm
- Vanadium (V): 67 +/- 12 ppm
- Titanium (Ti): 51 +/- 13 ppm
As always, please let me know if you have any questions.
Thank you for reading and for sharing my posts.
I’m very curious as to how you converted from the mg/cm2 the xrf outputs to ppm? Did you scrape off a section of the paint of each to get a weight? Ppm is a relative measurement not an actual amount of lead. For these numbers to have meaning we need for information on your test and study.
Hi Rob, I use an instrument that tests in PPM. It is the same instrumentation and software used by the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CSPC). more details are on this post (which is also linked in the header menu on every page of the blog): https://tamararubin.com/2016/12/ask-tamara-what-do-you-use-to-test-for-lead/
Tamara