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Thanks for the good wishes. I enjoyed the having breakfast with you New England guys and was looking forward to participating in drives/events with my cars. Thanks for welcoming me with open arms. Who knows I might still show up some day or maybe you guys can make a run up to Lake Placid!
About the bank business. A few years ago alot of toys came into the country from China that were contaminated with lead. Congress passed sweeping new lead standards that requires lead testing for every product manufactured for kids. The old standard was 600 parts per million. The new standard, in effect in August was a drop to 300 parts per million. The manufacturer is required to use a government approved lab. The only exceptions were the major toy manufacturers who can do testing in house. The major offenders were those same companies.
The manufacturer has to provide certificates of compliance. The retailers were given 60 days notice to sell all existing inventory. After the 60 days the sale of such would be illegal. Alot of stores simply closed up as they could not sell their inventory in 60 days. With out that income they couldn't replace it. Alot of the stores went out of business with out paying for the product they had in their stores.
The cost for the testing, the last time I did it, was $2900. I have over 60 designs of banks. So, the cost to comply is almost $180,000. These tests have to be repeated every 15 months.
The result of these requirments are the elimination of the small US manufacturer.
I argue that the requirments should be on the raw materials, not the end product. I use 8 basic paints for all of my designs. The raw materials are the same regardless of the design. I use only US manufactured paints. These have been lead free since 1977. The paint manufacturer already has to certify the paint. My banks tested at 3 parts per million.
No one wants unsafe products around children. But, there needs to be some common sense as to scale and costs. A few thousand dollars to a manufacturer that produces milliions of an item is not a big expense. But that same burden on a low volume, specialty manufacturer is crippling.
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