Steiner Sports Good or Bad?

[richpick]

Having a company monopolize the market and buy all of the game-used items from a team and then have to charge higher prices to cover their costs is this good or bad?

My thoughts:
In one way I believe it is good because if Steiner has all of a teams items and then that year an item pops up that is not from Steiner then it will raise eyebrows.

In a negative aspect it makes everything priced higher and it is more costly to collect. I would much rather teams sell their own items at Fanfests or through a charity.

Your thoughts?

[jon_8_us]

With Steiner recently signing on with the Red Sox i was very excited and worried at the same time.Excited because i now have a spot to get rock solid authentic bats.Worried because i'm gonna have to take out a loan at the bank to afford the stuff.I don't know why Steiner charges so much above normal market value but it puts a lot of collectors of regular means like myself in an expensive bind.The Red Sox secondary bat market where prices are somewhat reasonable will soon slow down which is bad news to collectors such as myself.However i hope to see some Sox bats come out with prices like some of those 99$ dollar Yankees bats did earlier this year.Time will tell.It certainly will be an adjustment for me.
Jon

[kylehess10]

Authenticity: Good
Prices: Bad

Plain and simple

[jon_8_us]

Authenticity: Good
Prices: Bad

Plain and simple

Ain't that the truth!
Jon

[soxbats]

Disagree, to a certain extent. I am actually pleased that Steiner has taken over the Red Sox game used equipment market. For those of us who collect Red Sox bats there have been very few sources and, as a result, these souces have had free reign to charge very high prices, even for common players. This is due, in part to a number of "middle men" who were getting their piece on the way to the market.

Yes, I am sure that the star player jerseys will be overpriced, but given the uncertainty in the market and the flood of star jerseys we have seen, at least now you can have some confidence what you get is a gamer (I understand that Steiner makes mistakes in this regard).

For the guys who had sources and got Red Sox equipment directly for low prices this is a bad development. For the rest of us this is great and, at least with regard to bats, I think we will see a reduction in prices over time as Steiner brings more bats (supply) to the mainstream market. I think we have seen this for the mid level and common player Yankee bats already. I have bought an absolutely fatastic Red Sox bat from them at a price that I consider at or below market value for the bat and much less than I have paid in the past for other similar bats. The person at Steiner was great, understood exactly what I was looking for, and found me the best bat among a number of choices. They also called me back, twice, to complete the deal.

On the other hand the thrill and rush of the hunt for new bats will be gone.

Always looking for Red Sox Bats, email me at soxbats@aol.com for my wantlist

[TNTtoys]

I think we will see a reduction in prices over time as Steiner brings more bats (supply) to the mainstream market. I think we have seen this for the mid level and common player Yankee bats already.

This is exactly what I have experienced with Mets items. I think Steiner sports is capitalism at its very best... They put out an initial offering. If the price makes sense to you, buy. If it doesn't, wait. Likely case is that there aren't many who would pay the price if it's many factors higher than the market value. The price then starts to come down... and comes down again... and again... until a buyer for the item shows up. Or the item appears in a sale... or Steiner/MLB auctions... Likely case, it may ultimately sell for a fraction of the original offering. Law of supply and demand at its finest.

[JETEFAN]

Agreed that Steiner has a direct link to the team, but as we have seen time and time again, they have no clue as to who, what, where and when an item was used, BP or games. Items sold of a player actually used by another etc. With their prices they have to do better than that!!

[Game Used Bats]

I don't see how this effects the price of Red Sox bats at all. Bats are owned by the players and are not given to Steiner in their agreeement. Bats that make it to Steiner that are uncracked were surrendered by the player or cracked and the player agrees to give it up.

[cjclong]

What would Steiner normally charge for an a game used bat for a player like Jeter that is not autographed. Do they handle ARod or does he keep all his own?

[mphcollectibles]

Bats or any game-used equipment can still come from the player and what ever company the player has representing him. A-Rod is not under Steiners umbrella of players and can make deals with his game-used stuff. David Wright has an exclusive with Locker Room Memorabilia and Steiner-Mets has no control over his game-used memorabilia. Collectors need to realize that just because Steiner labels themself Steiner-Mets or Steiner-Yankees does not mean they get the rights to every piece of game used piece a team produces. The partnership means that Steiner is a reputable source of game used material from those teams they partnered up with. Does that mean the middlemen will get cut out?? No, it just means that they will have a harder time re-selling the stuff they do acquire because the collector will only think to trust Steiner.