About the Safety of the Toys we sell...

Hello, thanks for browsing our site and taking the time to view this page.

In light of the recent recalls involving toys manufactured in China, we felt it was important to have a page on our site that discusses the product lines that we carry. While a lot of toy manufacturing has moved to China, that is not to say that all "Chinese made" toys are unsafe for children. All of the vendors that we have spoken to have stated that they have done extensive testing on all of the materials that go into their products (including lead in paint), and have assured us that their products are completely safe for children. We have begun contacting all of our vendors (whether or not they produce their toys in China) and have requested saftey notices from them.

UPDATE: November, 11, 2007
We have since received many safety notices from our manufacturers assuring us that their products are safe for Lead. However, to gain a higher level of confidence that the products for sale on "our site" are indeed safe, we decided to test our wooden toys for Lead in paint ourselves. We used a state-of-the-art hand-held XRF (X-Ray Fluorescence) Metal Analyzer that does “on-the-spot” screening for hazardous materials (i.e. Lead) found in toys and other imported consumer goods (the same model used by the US FDA for frontline screening of heavy metal contamination).With this equipment we performed screen-testing on our entire inventory of wooden toys that are manufactured in China. Having gone through that process, we now are much more confident that our products are indeed safe for children in regards to Lead content. Based on the results, we would give our products to our own son to play with!

The majority of the lines that we sell are from small, specialty toy makers and all of the products we sell meet or exceed ASTM and/or EN71 (the US and European Toy Safety Standards). We only sell "name brand" toys from reputable companies known for their high standards. These companies are relatively small and produce hundreds or thousands of a particular item, as opposed to "millions" like Mattel. It is then much easier to manage the safety and testing procedures as a lot of them are produced in one (or a few) facilities, many owned and managed by the particular company. We specialize in wooden toys for young children and do not sell any "mass market" plastic toys.

We hope that this might help to ease some of your concerns, at least about our store and the particular products we sell. Please let us know if you have any additional questions or concerns that we can help you with.

Being parents of a young son ourselves, we want only the best for him (and our customers, too!). He has been the inspiration for our store and the toys that we sell.