Vintage 1972 Wooden Fisher Price puzzle. 3,925 ppm Cadmium on the knobs. Cadmium is a known carcinogen.

Are vintage Fisher Price puzzles a concern?

Yes. A child will often chew on the knobs on this type of puzzle and these knobs (yellow or red) are consistently high-Cadmium vintage plastic. Cadmium causes cancer. Even if the risk is small it is not a risk that I feel is worth it given the inexpensive safer alternatives out there. If you have a way to replace the knobs with something Lead-free and Cadmium-free that might be a good option (to allow you to keep the puzzle) – but really the new wooden puzzles are completely safe and not very expensive. Please click here to learn more about the concerns for Cadmium in items intended for use by children.

When tested with an XRF instrument the puzzle pictured here had the readings below.

Yellow knobs:

• Cadmium (Cd): 3,925 +/- 91 ppm
• Barium (Ba): 6,005 +/- 266 ppm
• Zinc (Zn): 80 +/- 24 ppm
• Titanium (Ti): 203 +/- 52 ppm
• Chlorine (Cl): 236 +/- 108 ppm

How much Cadmium is too much?

The State of Washington considers toys and dishware unsafe for use by children if they test positive for 40 ppm Cadmium or higher. The Country of Denmark considers items toxic if they test positive for 75 ppm Cadmium or higher. If this was manufactured today it would be considered illegal by those two entities (based on the test results of the knobs alone.)

Please continue reading below the image. Thank you.

Painted elements on outside part of puzzle (flowers under bird house):

• Lead (Pb): 40 +/- 7 ppm
• Arsenic (As): 10 +/- 6 ppm
• Zinc (Zn): 115 +/- 15 ppm
• Iron (Fe): 52 +/- 30 ppm
• Chromium (Cr): 40 +/- 14 ppm
• Titanium (Ti): 4.742 +/- 111 ppm
• Chlorine (Cl): 762 +/ 250 ppm
• Red bird: 167 +- 19 ppm Lead + 32 +/- 6 ppm Cadmium

Other components (the applied paper graphics that depict the house on the surface of the puzzle pieces and the applied paper graphics on the inside of the house (the picture that is revealed when you remove the pieces) did not test positive for any Lead, Cadmium, Antimony or Arsenic.

As always, thank you for reading and for sharing my posts. Please let me know if you have any questions.

Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama

Some additional images below.