Per prior post, I’m going back to the gym wearing 3M 8511 vented 95 respirators.
Of which I only have two left. One of which is now quite soggy from its first trip to the gym.
And, while these 3M respirators last a long time, I’ve decided to buy another box for gym use.
I think.
I mean, I’m sure I’m buying some more vented respirators. I’m not sure they are going to be genuine 3M masks. A felt a little tingle in my economists’ sense when I looked over what’s currently being offered, at what price.
For 10 of these 3M 8511 masks:
- Home Depot wants $2.80 per mask.
- Ace Hardware wants $2.80 per mask.
- Lowes wants $2.60 per mask.
- No-name vendors on Amazon want about $1.80 per mask.
Makes me wonder why 3M would offer such a steep discount to a handful of no-name vendors on Amazon. Discounts that they won’t offer to big-volume sellers like Home Depot. All selling just a few boxes each.
Maybe this warning explains it:
Source: Amazon.
The above is actually in one of the Amazon listings. But there are no listings for 8511 masks shipped and sold by Amazon, right now. All the listings for the 8511 masks are a) for tiny no-name vendors, b) with just a few boxes left, c) typically with errors in the listing.
For example, I’m pretty sure this is NOT an accurate description of what these masks are made of.
During the pandemic, 3M had a serious problem with counterfeiting. Check out the numbers on their COVID-19 fraud page.
I’m guessing the extra-cheap masks on Amazon are the last of the COVID-19 counterfeit stock. It’s possible that many small vendors ended up with two or three boxes of the real thing, and they’ve all decided to dump them at a steep discount. Maybe they all bought them at a much lower price than the current price, and they’ve all decided not to make some extra profit by raising their prices.
But if I had to guess, despite the positive comments on Amazon, I’d guess these are COVID-19 counterfeit stock, trickling out into the marketplace via Amazon.
So I’m off to Home Depot for what I sincerely hope will be my last-ever purchase of N95 respirators.
