Spode Copeland's China Floral Pattern Tea Cup - Made in England: 59,500 ppm Lead. Context: 90 ppm and up is unsafe for kids.

Introduction:

Tamara Rubin is a Federal award winning independent advocate for consumer goods safety and childhood Lead poisoning prevention. She is also a mother of Lead-poisoned children. She began testing consumer goods for toxicants in 2009, and was the parent-advocate responsible for finding Lead in the popular fidget spinner toys in 2017. She uses XRF testing (a scientific method used by the Consumer Product Safety Commission) to test consumer goods for metallic toxicants (including Lead, Cadmium, Mercury and Arsenic). To read more about the testing methodology employed for the test results reported on this blog, please click this link.

Short (3-minute) video discussing this tea cup:

September 6, 2021 – Monday
XRF test results for the Spode Copeland’s China tea cup pictured

Reading #1) focus on purple flower
60-second reading

Lead (Pb): 59,500 +/- 600 ppm
Cadmium (Cd): non-detect
Mercury (Hg): non-detect
Bromine (Br): non-detect
Chromium (Cr): 604 +/- 101 ppm
Manganese (Mn): 535 +/- 70 ppm
Iron (Fe): 1,876 +/- 69 ppm
Cobalt (Co): 3,591 +/- 75 ppm
Copper (Cu): 287 +/- 18 ppm
Zinc (Zn): 8,464 +/- 102 ppm
Tin (Sn): 291 +/- 9 ppm
Antimony (Sb): 126 +/- 9 ppm
Barium (Ba): 89 +/- 22 ppm
Platinum (Pt): 308 +/- 54 ppm

Reading #2) focus on plain white area
60-second reading

Lead (Pb): 40,800 +/- 400 ppm
Cadmium (Cd): non-detect
Mercury (Hg): 31 +/- 12 ppm
Bromine (Br): non-detect
Chromium (Cr): non-detect
Iron (Fe): 1,850 +/- 70 ppm
Copper (Cu): 223 +/- 16 ppm
Zinc (Zn): 90 +/- 9 ppm
Tin (Sn): 8 +/- 5 ppm
Barium (Ba): 40 +/- 19 ppm
Platinum (Pt): 266 +/- 46 ppm

Reading #3) focus on red flower
60-second reading

Lead (Pb): 51,500 +/- 500 ppm
Cadmium (Cd): non-detect
Mercury (Hg): non-detect
Bromine (Br): non-detect
Chromium (Cr): 1,140 +/- 114 ppm
Manganese (Mn): 1,086 +/- 81 ppm
Iron (Fe): 3,572 +/- 90 ppm
Cobalt (Co): 2,621 +/- 65 ppm
Copper (Cu): 309 +/- 18 ppm
Zinc (Zn): 2,228 +/- 38 ppm
Antimony (Sb): 17 +/- 8 ppm
Barium (Ba): 68 +/- 20 ppm
Platinum (Pt): 210 +/- 48 ppm

All tests on each component are repeated multiple times (using a freshly calibrated XRF instrument) to confirm the levels of toxicants found. XRF test results are accurate, replicable and science-based.

Some additional reading that might be of interest:

Thanks for reading. Thank you for sharing my posts. As always, please let me know if you have any questions and I will do my best to answer them personally as soon as I have a moment (which may not be right away – but I will try!)

Tamara Rubin
#LeadSafeMama