Vintage California Contempora Ceramic Bowl: 105,400 ppm Lead in the glaze. 90 ppm is unsafe for kids.

When tested with an XRF instrument the vintage California Contempora ceramic bowl pictured here had the following readings:

Center of the food surface of dish – gray glaze in design:

• Lead (Pb): 104,500 +/- 3,900 ppm
• Barium (Ba): 320 +/- 135 ppm
• Antimony (Sb): 166 +/- 49 ppm
• Tin (Sn): 1,926 +/- 138 ppm
• Gold (Au): 245 +/- 120 ppm
• Zinc (Zn): 1,322 +/- 110 ppm
• Iron (Fe): 1,495 +/- 266 ppm
• Titanium (Ti): 473 +/- 90 ppm
• Zirconium (Zr): 4,738 +/- 263 ppm

Center of the food surface of dish – black glaze in design:

• Lead (Pb): 56,400 +/- 1,500 ppm
• Zinc (Zn): 792 +/- 68 ppm
• Iron (Fe): 2,038 +/- 243 ppm
• Vanadium (V): 78 +/- 34 ppm
• Titanium (Ti): 438 +/- 69 ppm
• Cobalt (Co): 1,023 +/- 145 ppm
• Manganese (Mn): 708 +/- 265 ppm

Center of the food surface of dish – main cream colored glaze:

• Lead (Pb): 39,800 +/- 900 ppm
• Zinc (Zn): 1,073 +/- 69 ppm
• Iron (Fe): 1,607 +/- 191 ppm
• Vanadium (V): 71 +/- 32 ppm
• Titanium (Ti): 568 +/- 72 ppm

This dish was tested for a minimum of 60-seconds on each component with each (repeated) test to make sure to report the most accurate possible reading.

I will update this post with more information shortly, but in the meantime  – please read some of the other posts I have written about vintage dishware to better understand the test results reported on this website.

As always – thank you for reading and for sharing my posts.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama