I wonder if they are contaminated with lead in the glaze..... whaddaya think, am I "in my mind" or what?

The lettering is just plain cheezy!  The "chip" looks like a defect, not a chip caused by dropping (to me, anyway).  The feathering at the edges of the glaze around the "chip" seems to give that away as a flaw (in case you might be wondering why I thought it was a defect).