Comment by Steve Zarelli on December 27, 2020 at 1:44pm

Yep. Drawn fake.

Sadly, Steiner has turned into the new Scoreboard. A reputable company whose COAs became corrupted through copying. Steiner was alerted years ago of this problem and it appears they did nothing. Now it’s reaching critical mass. 

Comment by Jason Strecker on December 27, 2020 at 1:54pm

It's really a shame as company as big as Steiner was (not sure about new ownership) couldn't have better stickers with personalized numbers they could input in a system, which matching hologram and number for their cards. Their cards were pretty stylish but not they probably will turn into a higher end Scoreboard.

Comment by CJCollector on December 27, 2020 at 2:07pm

Here's the other thing, Jason.

I must have contacted Steiner at least a dozen times about these, and they never replied.

You would think they'd be adamant about protecting their brand.

Comment by Steve Zarelli on December 27, 2020 at 2:39pm

The solution was quite simple. All Steiner had to do was assign an intern or a lower level employee to periodically review eBay lots. When they saw the fake Steiner holograms on bad items, they simply report it to eBay through Vero and the listing would be immediately pulled by eBay. Clothing companies, handbag companies, musicians and other similar companies do this all the time with counterfeit product. The thing is, if Steiner had started this early and nipped in the bud, it would have stopped. The crooked eBay sellers would not continue to use fake Steiner holograms if the listings were getting yanked. Instead, Steiner chose to stick their head in the sand and ignore the issue… Now it’s reached epidemic levels and they totally lost control of the brand.

Comment by CJCollector on December 27, 2020 at 2:44pm

Well written, Steve.

Steiner (Brandon) never cared, and now he owns CollectibleXChange and as soon as I received an email from them I "Unsubscribed."

Comment by Jason Strecker on December 27, 2020 at 6:11pm

Funny you mention the VERO program as I first found out about it like 20 years ago as Pat Priest from the Munster's son handled her fan mail and Al Lewis's fan mail and would use the VERO to get fake items removed from ebay. Steiner def. should have protected his brand better. He published his book not too long ago and it seems like not long after he was selling the company.

Comment by terrier8HOF on December 28, 2020 at 8:30am

in the end, Steiner got their money for the items up front.  What this sticker theft or forging is achieving is lowering the market price for these on resale.  So it only affects the people that trusted the Steiner name and paid the extra money for the item.  It's really a bad deal for everyone except Steiner.

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