FAO Schwarz Merry Christmas musical train/ snow globe: 53 ppm Lead in the glass (safe by all standards)

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Tamara Rubin is a multiple-federal-award-winning independent advocate for childhood Lead poisoning prevention and consumer goods safety, and a documentary filmmaker. She is also a mother of Lead-poisoned children (two of her sons were acutely Lead-poisoned in 2005). Since 2009, Tamara has been using XRF technology (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). Tamara’s work was featured in Consumer Reports Magazine in February 2023 (March 2023 print edition).

When tested with an XRF instrument, the FAO Schwarz Merry Christmas musical snow globe train (pictured here) had the following readings:

#1) Red paint of train:
60-seconds

Cadmium (Cd): 19 +/- 5 ppm
Silver (Ag): 9 +/- 4 ppm
Palladium (Pd): 6 +/- 3 ppm
Iron (Fe): 662 +/- 145 ppm
Indium (In): 25 +/- 7 ppm
Titanium (Ti): 1,441 +/- 269 ppm

#2) Black painted areas:
30-seconds

Zinc (Zn): 172 +/- 31 ppm
Copper (Cu): 2,687 +/- 130 ppm
Iron (Fe): 424 +/- 150 ppm

#3) Gold painted areas:
60-seconds

Platinum (Pt): 160 +/- 71 ppm
Zinc (Zn): 7,636 +/- 210 ppm
Copper (Cu): 99,900 +/- 1,900 ppm
Iron (Fe): 424 +/- 101 ppm

#4) Silver painted areas:
60-seconds

Cadmium (Cd): 11 +/- 5 ppm
Copper (Cu): 152 +/- 35 ppm
Iron (Fe): 744 +/- 140 ppm
Indium (In): 15 +/- 7 ppm
Titanium (Ti): 485 +/- 173 ppm

#5) White painted areas:
60-seconds

Cadmium (Cd): 15 +/- 7 ppm
Zinc (Zn): 136 +/- 30 ppm
Indium (In): 24 +/- 10 ppm
Titanium (Ti): 237,000 +/- 6,400 ppm

#6) Glass of snow globe:
60-seconds

Lead (Pb): 53 +/- 9 ppm
Cadmium (Cd): 10 +/- 4 ppm
Chromium (Cr): 192 +/- 93 ppm
Iron (Fe): 576 +/- 103 ppm
Indium (In): 13 +/- 5 ppm
Vanadium (V): 828 +/- 94 ppm
Titanium (Ti): 373 +/- 82 ppm

#7) Turner for music box
60-seconds

Antimony (Sb): 2,565 +/- 198 ppm
Bromine (Br): 18,900 +/- 400 ppm
Zinc (Zn): 388,000 +/- 2,500 ppm
Copper (Cu): 479,900 +/- 2,500 ppm
Nickel (Ni): 98,000 +/- 1,100 ppm
Iron (Fe): 3,188 +/- 303 ppm
Titanium (Ti): 5,759 +/- 1,072 ppm

As always, thank you for reading and sharing these results. I will likely update this piece soon with more information, however in the meantime, please check out the following links if you have questions:

Please let me know if you have any questions. With 1.165 Million unique readers in 2020 alone, I am not always able to answer each and every question personally, but I do try.

Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama