Just recalled
When it comes to toys, buying American is tough
After recent high-profile recalls of some Barbie, Polly Pocket and Thomas & Friends products, you’ve vowed not to buy Chinese-made toys this Christmas.
Good luck.
Even though it’s shaping up to be the “anti-China Christmas,” your kid’s stocking likely will be stuffed with Chinese-made toys — unless you put oranges in it. That’s because 80% of all toys sold in the USA are made in China. Some internal toy-industry estimates show only about 10% are actually made here.
And if you do go the U.S.-made route, be ready for limited choices and, perhaps, a tough sell to the kids. Most U.S.-made toys are wooden, old-fashioned “nostalgia” toys, such as blocks or puzzles, that may not hold the interest of kids older than toddlers. There’s Slinky, the twisty-wire-walking toy from the 1950s, and some plastic toys like K’Nex construction sets.
Remember Jarts? Flying daggers of fun!!! Great picture UD.
Buy European. Playmobile, Lego plus lots of nice wood toys – Brio trains and car sets, etc.
The American companies left us for China – I have no loyalty to them anymore.
best picture ever
Yeah, nice photo, Uncle Dave. I think the slide in the picture may have been designed by a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson. Bandage sales were a little flat this year and dangerous playground equipment was the quickest way to boost demand for their Band-Aid® line of products.
#3. yes, complete with straw around the grater.
I HATE all the “new” toys anyway. What 3 year old needs a bunch of honking, sirens, beeping, talking, flashing toys ANYWAY? They push buttons for two minutes, get bored and they sit to leak battery acid on the rest of the junk in the toy box.
Crayons, paper, sidewalk chalk, blocks, legos, lincoln logs, erector sets, playdoh, colorforms, books, finger paints, rag dolls, broom stick horses, jump ropes, balls, trikes, sleds, games (the board kind) are all better for a kid than the colorful lead-or-no-lead crap they make in China. Why do all toys need to be associated with a cartoon or some other garbage? Let’s go back to what really matters..inventive play, hands-on manipulatives, and toys that don’t make a racket.
I used to enjoy a trip to ToysRus, but then they went all merchanising, garbage, and plastic flashy boring toys…and now I hate it. I love toys….but, not the junk that lines the shelves, now.
I’m so GLAD that China has come under the spell of the Walmartese “cheaper cheaper cheaper at all costs”. Maybe it will finally be karma, and Walmart will go bankrupt? (okay, so I can DREAM, can’t I?)
6. A dream we share meetsy, a dream we share.
#6 For a first hand insight of how the lead paint got to the toys – see my one post on the subject on my one post blog.
Cheers
how do you know American toy paint got no lead? as far as i concern it could have happen anywhere.
Yeah, everything that made in America is safer, including nuclear waste.
Buy Lego and support the Danish economy! They are the best toys anyways.
Back in the day when I was a youngster, the only toy I had was a rock. One day I misbehaved and they busted the rock in half. I grew up with only half a rock, and was glad of it. Some kids I knew only had pebbles. 😉
#11 RTaylor, you must have really had life easy, you and your fancy rock! My parents only gave me sand, and I was forced to spend many long hours gluing the grains of sand together to assemble my own toy rock. But when I was finished, I really had a sense of accomplishment!
Kids these days don’t know how good they’ve got it 😉
#12 Sand?
Luxury.
Every morning I used to have to eat a handful of hot gravel and HOPE I could pass enough sand to take to work for twenty hours day at mill for 3 cents a month, come home, and Dad would thrash me to sleep with a broken bottle, if I was lucky!
You try and tell the young people of today that ….. they won’t believe you. 😉
Cheers
Can today’s kids even figure out how to use Lego bricks and other construction toys? They may require some thought and creativity.
Pussies! All I had was the hole where a rock had been and I had to trudge miles to a polluted lake, dive in and scrape away the dead mafia guys’ bodies in concrete overshoes to get to the sand to haul back and dump into the water filled hole to create quicksand. Ah, good times, good times…
For an extensive list of companies that sell American made toys, go to:
http://americanmadetoys.googlepages.com/
No one in my family is buying toys or any products made in China!!!
If you look real good you can still find many good products made in USA.
We found a great toy company who makes toy trucks and cars for boys.
It is German made. Bruder- http://www.bruder.de
They have great prices!!! Don’t buy Tonka- made in China
I’ve just found out on http://www.healthytoys.org that Slinky (a USA made toy) has lead in it, and the miniature copied version, sold in Target toys as party favors had lead levels of 1500 ppm. Both are still sold in stores. Apparently, lead laws only apply to lead in paint and not lead in other materials (ie., metal).
I’ve gotten so tired of searching for safe toys, that we’ve just hired a testing company to come to our house and test all of our toys. I say the $300 will be well worth it – we’ve already spent as much in lead check swabs. The Niton XRF hand held analyzer xrays the toys and checks for every element on the periodic table – how’s that for thorough?