China Toy Recall (1 Viewer)

[Gideon]

I am a toy seller and am happy to say that this recall has had no impact on the toys I sell.

This said, I have been berated with questions over the past few weeks to the point where I actually wrote a small letter and took out advertising on Google so people could read it.

Click here to read the short piece

This whole situation has me really frustrated with the lengths people will go to jump on the fear band waggon - something I directly call the "Infrastructure of Fear".

Did you know that the marketing people for John Edwards campaing bought google advertising for a few weeks during all the publicity? It got me so angry.

Anyway, read up - it was the only thing I could think to do.

 

[RWFigarti]

In today's New York Times, there were a couple of articles detailing how all of the recent major toy recalls have related to toys manufactured in China. One of the recalls included RC2 (the former owner of Britains), whose Thomas the Tank trains line has been recalled because lead paint was used.

We all know that toy soldiers are made of lead or pewter (please correct if I'm wrong) but since many collectors have small children, what is the composition of the paint on the toy soldiers we collect?

Since this is a subject of some concern, I would like to have all the manufacturers weigh in on this issue, from King and Country, Britains, Honor Bound, John Jenkins (Andrew, please ask), New Model Army, Figarti, East of India, etc.

A related question is if non-lead based paint is used and a soldier is made of lead, can the lead nevertheless still migrate?

Hi Brad,

My Dad has been sending me articles about this serious issue of Lead contamination in toys made in China.

At Figarti Miniatures, we take this matter VERY serioiusly and ONLY use "LEAD-FREE" paint on our products. Unlike other manufacturers, we are in FULL CONTROL of our production as well as raw materials sourcing because we do all of our production in-house at our own factory. We have strict requirements for our raw material suppliers to provide necessary documents and lab test results that meet with international standards through SGS Certifications.

I agree with Andy that our industry strives to give collectors the best and we don't treat our business as a mass market toy business.

To answer your last question, I think it is unlikely for migration of lead from a figure unless it is completely crushed. That said, Figarti Miniatures is using NON-LEAD base metal in all of our figures as required by our Italian machine supplier.

Figarti Miniatures is committed to QUALITY & SAFETY.

Rick
RWFigarti

 

[theBaron]

I've returned all of the toy soldiers I have bought, they were contaminated with lead!