Spode England (with woman at a well design), c. 2005-2007: 50,500 ppm Lead

For those new to this website:

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). 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 tested. Tamara’s work was featured in Consumer Reports Magazine in February of 2023 (March 2023 print edition).

#1) Test on the food surface of the dish (with a red pattern)

Lead (Pb): 50,500 +/- 1,100 ppm
Barium (Ba): 335 +/- 69 ppm
Tin (Sn): 737 +/- 38 ppm
Zinc (Zn): 2,379 +/- 101 ppm
Iron (Fe): 1,076 +/- 154 ppm
Vanadium (V): 499 +/- 98 ppm
Titanium (Ti): 1095 +/- 166 ppm

#2) Test on the back of the dish (logo area, black writing)

Lead (Pb): 48,800 +/- 1,300 ppm
Barium (Ba): 294 +/- 86 ppm
Zinc (Zn): 2,337 +/- 128 ppm
Cobalt (Co): 421 +/- 111 ppm
Iron (Fe): 1,182 +/- 205 ppm

#3) Test on the back of the dish (white area only)

Lead (Pb): 48,500 +/- 1,300 ppm
Barium (Ba): 247 +/- 81 ppm
Tin (Sn): 51 +/- 24 ppm
Zinc (Zn): 2,348 +/- 121 ppm
Iron (Fe): 828 +/- 173 ppm

Thank you for reading and sharing these articles!
This piece was published the weekend of June 4-6, 2021.

With the articles I am writing this weekend, I am doing my best to write up and publish as many test result sets as possible, as quickly as possible (because I am over a YEAR behind in my writing as a result of having absolutely no childcare for most of the pandemic [no childcare since about two weeks before the pandemic actually… as my kids were already out sick with various illnesses when the pandemic started])!

Yup, that’s right — some people have been waiting (ever so patiently) for more than a year for the test results for their items because of the impact the pandemic has had on my ability to both test consumer goods, coherently write about them, and also take the time to document each item with photographs.

To this end, in the posts this weekend I am simply including photos of the items tested along with the XRF test results and will not be writing more specifically about each of these products — like I usually do — at this time (in the interest of getting as much information out to my readers as quickly as possible).