Eclipse Glasses - the safe, not safe, safe again saga

August 17, 2017 4:01 PM

I purchased Daylight Sky brand eclipse glasses from Amazon. A week ago Amazon refunded my money with a note that they could not verify that the glasses were safe. Sometime in the last four days the AAS has added Daylight Sky as a Reputable Vendor. Would you feel OK offering the Daylight Sky glasses to others? Would you feel OK using them?

In the middle of all of this I purchased new eclipse glasses from American Paper Optics which were always on the AAS list of safe vendors and these are the ones I'll be using. Meanwhile everyone around me is looking for eclipse glasses and I'll happily give away my Daylight Sky brand pairs but I'm having trouble shaking off the impression that they are unsafe, please reassure or dissuade me.

posted by Miss Matheson to Shopping (5 answers total)

Here is a link that tells you how to check to see if they are safe.
posted by just asking at 4:11 PM on August 17, 2017 [2 favorites]

Best answer: This Amazon recall is a huge snafu that has caused a lot of angst these past 3-4 days. A comment from this Hacker News discussion summed it up nicely:

"The problem seems to be not that Amazon has recalled counterfeit items but rather they have recalled legitimate product, blaming the legitimate seller for the fact that Amazon can't keep straight where their safety-critical inventory came from. It is as if they have a bin for "Viagra" in the warehouse into which they put shipments from Pfizer, along with whatever comes in from their eBay-grade sellers. Then they blame Pfizer for the eBay drugs not being properly traceable and tested."

So your glasses might be legit, use just asking's link to check them out before you trash them.

I was intending to create an FPP about Amazon's growing problem with counterfeit goods poisioning their supply chain, and this time around it may actually be a life safety issue. I pray that nobody is hurt by this.
posted by JoeZydeco at 4:15 PM on August 17, 2017 [8 favorites]

Best answer: I'm following this pretty closely, and as far as I know, nobody is counterfeiting glasses by making them look like they come from an AAS-listed safe vendor. The sketchy glasses I've seen personally have no manufacturer name printed on them, just "MADE IN CHINA" or no manufacturing information at all (but they all have an ISO certification printed on them; that means nothing without the name and address of the manufacturer).

Probably your glasses were made by Daylight Sky, and if the AAS says they're a safe manufacturer, I'd feel safe using the glasses.
posted by BrashTech at 5:23 AM on August 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

and as far as I know, nobody is counterfeiting glasses by making them look like they come from an AAS-listed safe vendor

American Paper Optics (APO) is one of the biggest manufacturers and they are definitely being counterfeited with their markings included.

Here's a Quartz article showing how to tell real APO glasses from counterfeits that are using the APO markings. (TLDR: APO changed the shape of their glasses but the counterfeiters didn't catch that change)
posted by JoeZydeco at 8:41 AM on August 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

Thanks, JoeZydeco.
posted by BrashTech at 3:48 PM on August 18, 2017