Is this rapid depreciation true? … The weaker magnets of my childhood preserved magnetism much longer, but were larger, shaped to emphasize polarity, and came with “keepers.”

I think that the “BuckyBall” magnets (not to be confused with Fullerene graphite called buckyballs and buckytubes) are either Alnico (Aluminum, Nickel, Cobalt alloyed with Iron) or rare earth alloy magnets. I suspect Alnico because rare earth alloys can be expensive.

Either way, I don’t think the magnets deteriorate rapidly. Both types of magnets are used in applications where they are expected to last very long lifetimes. Alnico magnets in loudspeakers is an example, and many existing loudspeakers have been around since shortly after the invention of the Alnico alloy in 1931 with no deterioration.

Alnico is very brittle, as any kid who has ever taken apart a loudspeaker can tell you. Maybe Alnico’s brittleness, and speculation about BuckyBall magnets chipping or fracturing in use was the basis for the CSPC projecting such a short useful lifetime.

But I suspect that the CPSC meant depreciation in the financial sense, that a set of “BuckyBall” magnets would lose financial value rapidly.

>”Inasmuch as the Commission estimated the expected useful life of magnet sets to be
about one year”

Previously, I had feared that kids could find and injure themselves with a forgotten “adult” set in the attic or in a trash bin. But if this rapid obsolescence is true, then the principal safety objection to adult-marketed sets vanishes.

Is this rapid depreciation true? I was not able to find confirmation through a preliminary Google search. I suppose it is not a point that sellers would want to call attention to, *except* in the narrow context of safety regulation. The weaker magnets of my childhood preserved magnetism much longer, but were larger, shaped to emphasize polarity, and came with “keepers.”