The Dodge Omni is a small, simple car made a long time ago that was easy to drive and didn't cost much. People liked it because it used less gas and was good for everyday driving. It's often talked about because it's a cheap car you can find used.
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Speaker 1: Hey guys, welcome back to the Paul Junior Podcast. And
today I have an amazing guest. His name is Brandon
Steiner and he is the OG of game Youse, sports memorabilia and much much more.
Speaker 2: I'm excited to talk to him.
Speaker 1: I've spoke with him once before, but I'm going to get his background.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna get his story. This guy is amazing.
Speaker 1: Oh Brandon Steiner. Everyone on the Paul Junior Podcast. And
we spoke a while back, and man, you're a really interesting fella. You know, I'm a collector of early transportation
and Americana, but you invented the idea of collectibility in some capacity, especially when it comes to sports memorabilia. And
so everyone's got a journey as to how they get to where they are today, right, And so if you would, for the people who don't know, bring me back to like maybe a little bit about where you're from originally, and then kind of how you got into the whole thing of sports memorabilia and doing some of these things like Yankee Stadium and some of these big projects that were well just groundbreaking for what you do. I feel
like you're the OG of what you do, and that's a pretty big statement in the world that is in the collectible world of sports memorabilia, which is massive.
Speaker 3: Well, thank you for saying that.
Speaker 4: I appreciate it, And I think the main thing I just want to mention before I get into a little bit of the story, and that is like, it's the fans and the customers that make it happen for me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I never take.
Speaker 4: That for granted, because everybody has a lot of places to spend money and hobbies to pick, and the fact that they get behind when I'm creating what I've done for the last thirty five forty years is just a blessing.
It's just amazing. I can never take that for granted.
You know, I'm not a Steiner anymore. You know, people
know me from Steins. I started a new company, Collectible Exchange.
And the reason I bring that up is like when you say how you got started. I built this new
company in the same exact framework that I initiate it and I initiated with Steiner Sports back in the late eighties.
And it's all driven about what customers need and want and a problem they have and how I can figure out how to fix it. I grew up in Brooklyn
King's Howeoshan Parkway. I was definitely the poorest kid in.
Speaker 3: The neighborhood by far, was not even close.
Speaker 4: But you know, you know, to me, when I look back at my childhood, life is really about being able.
Speaker 3: To figure it out.
Speaker 4: And that's what the challenge of growing up so poor in the middle class, upper middle class neighborhood. It pushes
you to be curious, how do those people get up do so well? How do I get some of that?
Instead of like why do they have that?
Speaker 3: Why I don't have it? I took it more like, man,
this doesn't seem that hard.
Speaker 4: That was my big takeaway living with a lot of people with more money than they was like, it's not that hard. Those people aren't that unbelievable, Like I could
do what they're doing. Make The education is critical, no
matter how much of a hustle and a grinder you are.
I went to an experimental high school past Fail, so I was a very new school at the time, and that helped me. It got me into understand the importance
of learning and staying curious and trying to learn about new things. The school really promoted that. I had a
lot of curriculum that a normal high school wouldn't have.
So I got the break on to Syracuse with seven to sixty on my boards, passed Felt high school no money, went to the most expensive school in New York, Syracuse, And that was probably my big break because I lived with a football player, and you know, I never really my high school had no sports, by the way, so it was like my first introduction to really competitive, high profile sports, and I got to see firsthand, besides living with a black football player, a little bit of understanding about you know, what that's like, and also what it's like to be on that level of the pressures and
what responsibilities come with just besides playing on the field, you know, the day to day grind that they go through, the pr the press and everything else. And I didn't
know it was going to come in handy as I started my.
Speaker 1: Did you did you grow up a sports fan or did you watch baseball anything like that?
Speaker 3: Or yeah, I was a big sports fan.
Speaker 4: You know, I tell kids all the time, just because you're a sports fan doesn't mean you're that Sports marketing is right business right for sure, you know. So I
wasn't ever thinking I was going to get any kind of sports business. But we were rabid sports fans. We
played everything.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 4: I definitely left the top ninety percent of my neighborhood, you know, exists as far as the popularity in sports, like I was a very mediocre athlete, just hoping to get chowsen in and Brooklyn was a lot of kids and a lot of players, so it was hard to compete.
So it always brought the best in you. But I
wasn't by far one of those kids that you know, I hurt my knee, oh if, I just know I was never going to make it past playing intramural and school yard sports, right, I think, you know. The big
break I was in the hospitality industry, and then the big break was I couldn't raise enough money out my own At the time, in nineteen eighty four eighty five, there were only a couple of sports bars that I had opened up.
Speaker 2: That's what I got in the business, the sports bars.
Is that what you said?
Speaker 4: There was only two sports bars in the whole country, Wow one in Chicago and Bobby Valentine's in Connecticut. And
we opened up the first electric sports bar called the Sporting Club on Hudson Street, and it was.
Speaker 3: In the middle of nowhere. I hadn't been working for
the hard Rock opened up the first hard rock, and my restaurant career was going really well. That was my goal.
I was a restaurant, hotel guy. That was my dream
work for Hyatt.
Speaker 4: I got this huge break to be the assistant GM and hard Rock, and then when I couldn't raise enough money to open up what would have been a hard rock in sports and then went Now we see the sports bars everywhere. We had the only satellite dish in
New York. I couldn't raise enough money. I decided, since
I had met so many athletes in the sports bars that I was running, because players would always come in, we do promotions, I decided to open up a little sports agency because I figured I can go hook up players.
So for the first years before I got into collectibles, I was literally just marketing players. Okay literally about two
thousand appearances a year. I still do a tremendous amount
of apears.
Speaker 1: So you were booking appearances because I, you know, I do a lot of appearances through the years, and so that's interesting.
Speaker 2: So it really started with the athletes themselves, and.
Speaker 4: The reason exactly the reason what made the collectible thing happen is that I just realized that there was so much fraud and bad stuff out there, and also I needed to extend out what I was doing with the athletes.
Speaker 3: So I figured, let me let me start doing some collectibles.
Speaker 4: And I figured a lot of the companies I was doing these appearances with would buy one hundred baseballs and ten helmets, do some raffles, trade shows, pr and marketing where they need these collectibles, then the brand. Because there's
so many fake autographs out there. People knew that this
connection with the athletes. A lot of the athletes sign
with me because they knew that get them the marketing stuff.
So I get them the marketing appearances, they go, oh, I'll do the collectibles with you. I don't know who
else out there I could trust anyway, right, And that's how the whole thing evolved.
Speaker 3: It was never going to be a brand that people would know.
Speaker 4: I was just trying to get, you know, companies to use it as a raffle, as an auction type of thing at one of their events.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but your name was bringing authenticity and to the collectibility side of it. People were trusting the fact that
if it came from you or you were a part of it, that it had legitimacy and it could they could not be worried about spending their hard earned money on something that wasn't real.
Speaker 3: Well, I appreciate that.
Speaker 4: I think, you know, in the business and collectibles and really in business in general, I always think business is a two way highway, either on the right road or the wrong road. And a lot of people think there's
this gray area, but the gray area always comes back to haunt. Yet you know, people either trust and respect
you or the they a little weary about it. And
if you think about the best brands, it really relies a lot about trust and the consistency about what you were willing to do to back up your brand. I
was really bullish on my brand, even though I had nothing to be bullish about other than my name and the fact that I knew some apply.
Speaker 3: But I was extremely.
Speaker 4: You know, we had a hoggram, we had an authentication process, and we were just really really careful about what we did and who we did it with.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, it's funny because like when I broke away from OCC back in the day and became Paul Junior Designs, your name is on your brand and in your case, same thing, right, So now you're not just you.
It's very personal. It's not like it's not like some
other name you're associating with. It's your last name or
in my case, your first name. And if you don't
have your name, what do you have?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 4: I mean?
Speaker 2: If so, you have to protect that.
Speaker 1: So bullish is a good way to put it, because if you're not like that when it comes to your own credibility and namesake.
Speaker 2: What are you doing?
Speaker 4: You know? I think it's everything even uncollectible change my
name is it's collectile changed by Brandon Steiner and everything we do. What makes our news site really unique is
we're helping people. I'm buying back all the collectibles that
I sold to people because they want to trade in, or they want to try right up, or they just they're downsizing or somebody has passed away.
Speaker 3: Is I'm trying to solve a problem.
Speaker 4: There's that millions of collectibles out there and people don't know what to do with it, and they want to.
Speaker 3: Have a safe place. So now like my site, So
based on that, I'm sitting on the couch.
Speaker 4: Just to tell you a quick story, I'm sitting on the couch it's eleven o'clock at night, and my wife and I probably have about seven thousand collectibles in my sports literally and about four or five thousand autograph.
Speaker 3: Cards and all kinds of shit, you know, everywhere, And my wife says, what do you do with all this stuff?
I'm like, you mean, if I die, what should you do?
Speaker 4: Like is it like that kind of questions Like yeah, I wouldn't even know what to do with all this, And I'm like, wow, Like, I bet there's a lot of people out there that are sitting with a lot of stuff that's been left or they've collected, and they don't know what to do with it.
Speaker 3: How do you organize it? What do you do with it?
How do you sell it? And that's how I got started.
Speaker 4: I started collecting exchange with my collection, going through all the processes that I asked somebody else to.
Speaker 3: Go through them.
Speaker 4: I say, I went through this. I think, like the
brilliance in marketing and building a business is the basics and the fundamentals and the honesty. Yeah, I think so
many companies just get away from the basic fundamentals of telling the truth they do so like I'm.
Speaker 3: Sitting with somebody like, let me tell you what I did.
Let me tell you how I did it.
Speaker 4: It's gonna be a little painful when you lose these seven thousand or thousand times you've collected. But money you're
gonna get from that, you're going to use. Its been
better spent. You're sitting in a room with a thousand things.
Nobody's seeing it, which is really my main reason, Like nobody's come to my house to see my seven thousand e right right.
Speaker 2: They're just for your They're just for your you know, enjoyment.
Speaker 1: But at some point in time, to your wife's point, it becomes like, Okay, what what's happening here?
Speaker 2: You know, what are we doing with this?
Speaker 1: And so apparently you were you were obviously a passionate collector of this stuff before it became a commodity so to speak. Right, yeah, because I understand that because I
got all these I collect all this transportation in America, and it has come up over the past actually twenty years, with the last decade. It's just, man, I bought signs
ten years ago that are worth a hundred times what I paid. I paid a lot of money at the time,
you know, so, and I have a bunch of it, and it's all rare, but I love it. I'm sitting
here and like I'm bathing in this CeCe.
Speaker 3: You should. If you're enjoying it and loving it, I
respect it, keep it as long as you want. But
if you get to a certain point where you're.
Speaker 4: Really not enjoying that anymore, it's time to go. Yeah, yep, yeah,
And most importantly, life short have fun with it. This
whole thing is supposed to be fun. I mean, I
really get nervous when I see kids collecting strictly for the money, right, because you really should collect what you love, what you can enjoy, and then you're hoping that some of this can maybe take off and maybe gets right.
Speaker 3: But now now the industry has taken a much stronger business approach.
Speaker 4: I used to have to beg people say, you know, this hobby isn't it is a business too, But now I got to tell people, you.
Speaker 3: Know, this business is a hobby too. Yeah, I have
fun with this thing. Like the goal of that hot
of this hobby and business is have fun. Enjoy see
how things evolve, see how things flake out.
Speaker 4: But now there's a lot of expectations about things that people are buying that I think are going to be almost like a glass house, and I think a lot of people are going to be disappointed because the business has gotten hyped up a little too much, too fast.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 1: It's funny because when things are pumped up like that, it's almost like a facade. It's like they build it,
like to your point, they build it up, they market it.
They're not really being forthcoming about what it really is. Like,
It's like, what is the foundation we're talking about?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 1: Because the real stuff, it's blue chip, It stands the test of time, it's always going to be good. But
these fads that come and go, they just get built up, puffed up. People get into it, and then you know,
maybe three to five years nothing like something you're paying a thousand dollars for now. No one wants three to
five years from now. You know why, because there's no
real basis for it. It's a bit smoking mirrors.
Speaker 3: No regulation, is no account. It's the wild West.
Speaker 4: I don't mind if a grown up false for that crap, right, maybe you know, like I do kind of mind. But
when I see, you know, a fifteen year old spending their bomb instaurant, and I know that shit is just gonna be garbage in a few years. The car companies
have so much pressure to printing so many cards, way more than they should be printing, and just running the market up. And then listen, when you're young, you see
these marketing employees. You know, he's one of ones so
much and then they pay people. Then they go and
buy one of one from somebody at some ridiculous price.
Now kids like, I'm gonna chase that too, So they've set up this this false it's very it's it's it's it's very uh, it's you know, I've been in this business for over forty.
Speaker 3: Years now, and it's so so amazing how much it's grown.
Speaker 4: But then when I see people doing the wrong thing, it's bothersome to me because they're just new in the business.
They're just money grabbing. And I wish, I hope that
if you have kids out there or you're listening, like, please be careful. I know it smells really really good,
but really got to make sure because there's a lot of really smart marketers that manipulating things that I think you should be careful about. There are people buying cards
like you said, for five ten thousand dollars at the worth like fifty.
Speaker 3: This is happening already now.
Speaker 4: In five years from now, I can't imagine the bubble breaking as bad as it's going to break. We saw
it happened in the nineties. You know, people buying cases
and all, and this stuff is literally worthless, and it's going to happen again. There's so much waste, so many
cards that people buying that are like worthless. It's insane.
Speaker 1: So let me ask you a question to that point, right and real quick. I feel like maybe social media
has a lot to do with the hype, right, because you get an influencer who's got ten million views and he's sports related, and he's at these shows and he's pumping it up and he's saying, I got ten grand for this, and the next guy is going.
Speaker 2: To pay twelve.
Speaker 1: So to that point, where do you recommend if someone's collecting, especially a young person, right because we want to protect the next generation from getting you know, a snowed.
Speaker 2: What would you recommend Where where do they spend their money?
Speaker 1: What kind of stuff is this kind of stuff that you're never going to go wrong with that that a young person could still get into. I mean obviously when
you talk about Joe DiMaggio and all these big names and Babe Ruth, that's all the holy Grail stuff. That
stuff is virtually untouchable. Where does a kid come into
this early collector market with his bar mitzvah money? To
your point and make it like a decent investment. I'm
not asking you to, like you know, don't be the authority on all of it. But if you had a recommendation,
where where does someone start in that area?
Speaker 4: Well, I would say the same thing I've been saying for the last thirty years. And start off by buying
stuff players that you love, Yeah, gets on players.
Speaker 3: Or the team that you love. Start there.
Speaker 4: And then the second thing what's really important is you could start off small, like you can buy rookie cars.
Speaker 3: With that, you're buying cards.
Speaker 4: You have guys that are maybe in the minor leagues being not spending a lot, and you're playing the game.
It's fun, right, you know, Yeah, to go buy a guy with a card of a guy that had one good year, has really proven much and he's through and I give you countless names of situations like this.
Speaker 3: That's not a good idea.
Speaker 4: I like, you know, there's a lot of old vintage collectibles coming about because you have probably one of the most serious collectible groups of people that are now in their sixties and seventies that are now downgrading selling their collections.
You can go pick up a Mickey mantle Ball at a phenomenal price. You can go pick up a Ted
Williams at I'm at a phenomenal price. Those prices have
actually come down. You can get a Mohamad Ali pair
of clubs at a reasonable price. A lot of those
prices have come and leveled out because your seniors are the older people who are doing all that collecting. They're
downsides and they're spinning it off. They're not in the
buying mode as much. So I'm very bullish on that.
You know, picking up some old vintage stuff, stuff from the sixties and fifties and seventies on the collectible end, It'll be harder and harder in the years to come to find that it's a lot of those players aren't alive anymore.
Speaker 3: I think on the cards, I like the rookie stuff always.
It's fun.
Speaker 4: You take that gamble, but it's not an expensive one.
But you gotta stay away from these boxes that are you know, thousands of dollars hoping you're gonna get this one card, which it's like going to a casino.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, it's like yeah, yeah, yeah. The odds are
the odds aren't in your favor to.
Speaker 4: Your point, right, I love, I love like I'm taking that Buffalo Bills stadium now right, I mean, there's never gonna be another high Mark stadium.
Speaker 1: I'm like, wait, wait, wait, set that up for me because I heard about this and this is like like you're just breezing by it.
Speaker 4: But well, there's a lot of shit that I'm in the middle of that and that has never been done.
That's my goal is to do stuff that's never been done.
If I don't do it, no one's gonna. Like I
went to the Bills two years ago, I really begged them to if I could take the stadium down because I knew, I mean a lot of Buffalo bill fans, So I'll take that stadium.
Speaker 3: In partal, there's thousands of signs.
Speaker 4: Seats, grass, turf, gold hosts, you know, all kinds of stuff in the locker room, and you know, we'll sell them off. Some of the we're gonna auction off and
some of them was selling as we speak. Okay, that's
there's never gonna be another high Mark. So you can
buy something from that stadium and not get hurt. It's
not like more it's coming down the road.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's fun.
Speaker 4: I got you know, I took down the old Yankee Stadium, all those items that I sold off that people were laughing at me because we're selling signs and bricks and dirt.
Speaker 3: Is that a brandium?
Speaker 4: All right?
Speaker 1: Hold on, hold on, We got to rewind this because this is kind of a big because this is your life.
So this is just something you know, the framework in which you operate in. But for my audience, potentially, maybe
they have no idea about Well, let's back it up.
Tell me about Yankee Stadium. How does someone acquire Yankee Stadium?
I mean, in a sense, that's what happened here. So
give me that little bit of a backstory and then tell me what you did with Yankee Stadium.
Speaker 4: Well, first I'll say this, if anybody wants the book, you gotta have balls. If you email me, which we'll
put in the show, I'll send you a copy for free.
Speaker 3: You got a fook.
Speaker 4: Anybody who's listening, I'm going to send you a copy, but it really outlines the whole story. But what's crazy
is I was doing this a deal that definitely changed the business. My first deal that I did was with
the teams with the Yankees. It was Yankee Steiner And
as i'm it took me a year and a half to do this deal. And the last thing, I'm sitting
with Randy Levine at ln Schros and Brian Cashman, I go, guys, wait a minute, I can't sign this, like what a year and a half the lawyers in a very complex deal and I think at the time it was like a ten million dollar deal.
Speaker 3: So it's a pretty big deal for me.
Speaker 4: I go, if you ever sell it, if you ever knocked the stadium down and build a new one, I've got to be the guy to take the stadium down.
Speaker 3: I have no idea what gave me the impulse.
Speaker 4: To say this and ask for this, because there was no indication that's ever going to put a new stadium up.
Speaker 3: But he's not a feeling that. And sure enough, five
years after I signed.
Speaker 2: The deal, it came up, wait sign that deal. That
was part of the deal you signed.
Speaker 3: It was a handshake. You're not putting it in the deal.
Speaker 4: One of the thing I love about the Yankees that when they make a promise, they deliver.
Speaker 3: They stood by everything they always told me they were going to do. Randy was an amazing mentor.
Speaker 4: And ally in getting where I think was an industry changing deal, because once we did it with the Yankees, all the other teams.
Speaker 3: Want to do deals. And we did deals with the
Red Sox, the Cubs, the Dodgers, Notre Dame, and so on.
Alabama that that.
Speaker 2: Was your calling card, so to speak. All yes, guy.
Speaker 4: My gift was to go to a ballpark, go back into my ten year old mindset and say, what would I want as a ten year old.
Speaker 3: I want to gave me his ball.
Speaker 4: I want the base I want the lineup card, I want Jeters Jersey, I want his cleats, I want the outfield fence, the padding.
Speaker 3: This is what was going on in my head.
Speaker 4: I put myself back in a ten year old mindset and I built this whole collectible line that any stadium and a team could use. Knowing these things that the
teams weren't even thinking about this, And when I would sit down with Randy, who was really the guy, really championed me on this and made sure this could happen because people thought I was crazy. I was asking for
buckets of dirt. I sold over fifty million dollars of dirt.
I sold over well over a million and a half thouars of grass. Legally the grass field that would lift
the grass and freeze ryot, and I did it. I
did it a fedway. So a lot of these ideas.
People thought I was crazy, and I'd go to Randy and he would sit down. I'd explain it to him,
and he helped me champion it through because we need to get a pass through baseball, through the higher ups.
Speaker 3: So that's how this all comes about. And then when
the stadium came down, like.
Speaker 4: Most teams, they just want to knock the stadium down, sell a few things off. I was like, this is
a four year plan. Like what four years? I'm like,
everything in this stadium is valuable. I don't want every
Yankee fan to be able to have something right. That's
where the dirt, the grass, the outfield. Reggie Jackson called
me up, Brandon, what are you doing with the black and the outfield?
Speaker 3: I'm like, no, no, nothing good. Take that out. I'll
sign it in a nice silver marker. Put it in
a case.
Speaker 4: You'll have a piece of the black where I hit all those home runs. We cut the foul pole up
into thousands of pieces. We took the freeze up on
the top. We cut that up and melted it and
made these intiminished Yankee stadiums. There was fourteen thousand bricks
in the stadium. So it was just an amazing learning
experience and I feel very grateful I have that opportunity to do it. But I also know the Yankee fans
were incredibly grateful the way I went about it, because not everbody could afford certain things, and I made something for everyone.
Speaker 3: And that's when I went Pitts.
Speaker 4: I've done about seven stadiums over the years, Massive Square, Guard and.
Speaker 3: Giants Stadium, Texas Stadium. So when I went to see
the bills, I said, look, this is a stadium that's really important to a lot of people and it needs to be taken down the right way. I know you
got the new stadium.
Speaker 4: I really would like you to consider using me to really, almost like a surgeon, take this thing apart, said the Bill.
Those fans get all Bill's mafia can all have a piece, and it's a little different approach because when you get into these little things like you know, coasters with a piece of the turf, or a doormat with a piece of the turf or a piece of goal posts, it's extremely labor in sensive. It's a lot of work and
a lot of companies don't want to do it. But
I know that that's what the fans wanted. And the
bills were really great. They're very they bought into it,
they were behind it. They've been supporting me. I did
a deal with the county, but stadium was really owned by the county, so partners with them. The bills have
been incredibly supportive in this process because it's a lot more work. And then try to move to the new
stadium and then you know, I'm partners with Legends Global.
They on the website and they have the story in the stadium, so the distribution was a little easier.
Speaker 3: I love taking the stadiums apart.
Speaker 4: It's like definitely something I've become really good at and I have a different view about when I walk through a stadium.
Speaker 3: I have a little bit of a photographic memories.
Speaker 4: When I walked through the stadium, I could take you through Buffalo Stadium from top to bottom from an asset stamp, right, yeah.
Speaker 1: Sure, sure, and then you're probably doing hierarchy of like where the real value is with the stuff that you can maybe more people can afford type thing. I can
imagine that because I think like that. Right, I'm a designer,
but I'm also I have an engineering mind. Right, everything
I look at, how.
Speaker 3: Do we do this?
Speaker 2: Like if I had to do that, I'd have to come up with how do you do it? You have
to accomplish the task.
Speaker 1: It's one thing to have the idea, but then it's another thing to methodically and to your point, you told them, hey, four years right, so that you know you kind of have a framework as to what it's really gonna take.
A lot of people would go in there and made with an idea and have no clue as to hey, I'm gonna get two thumbs up, we got the deal.
Now what they have no idea, They have no clue.
So that's obviously your gift. You're able to go in
there and kind of dissect well something as large as a stadium in the way of memorabilia and do it well with success and strategically and be able to even tell the people that you're partnered with, Hey, this is what it's going to take. This is what makes you
like a unicorn. You're the authority on this type of thing,
which no one else does.
Speaker 3: You know, in fact, I have a different way of thinking about things.
Speaker 4: But one of my big things my business principles is your first idea is not your best idea.
Speaker 3: And success is one of the biggest deterrens for more success.
Speaker 4: A lot of times somebody will try something, have some success, and next thing you know, they're at the bar celebrating, and me, I'm thinking, why did that thing work and how can we even take it even further? Is the
way my mindset works, right, But to kind of give me an example, like the best poker players in the world, in the world the hands that they get, only twelve percent of those hands are good ones. You know why
that story relevant is because they figure it out. Like
to me, I think when you look at people that are great at what they do to figure it out, people, you know they figure it out.
Speaker 3: It's not a obvious Oh here here's four aces in your hand.
Speaker 4: And I think for me, like, no matter what was handed to me, obviously doing a partnership with the Yankees was an incredible gift. But I didn't stop there. I
went to note your Dame. I took the Yankee thing
much further, and those are ideas that are now use all over the world, over the country. So many teams
copied our model. So I'm so grateful. I mean, think
about the fact you do something that's relevant and that's going to stick. But so many of the ideas that
I came up with, people are laughing at me. That's
not going to work.
Speaker 3: We can't do that.
Speaker 4: You want dirt, What are you going to do with dirt?
We're not going to swap out the bases. So I
think we need to swap out the bases and sell the bases and people can pre order them in the game.
Speaker 3: But we do it.
Speaker 4: So one of my favorite programs right now that I'm working on another guy who's completely unicorn. What an amazing
market are the greatest, one of the great marketers and one of the great concepts, Savannah Bananas, and we have to do his collectibles to Samanna bad Now it's a small spoke in a much bigger wheel with Jesse, who's got a lot of things going. But he knows and
never lose his sight of what's most important, which is the fans, the greatest show on the planet.
Speaker 3: And he's not stopping because he came up with some good ideas.
Speaker 4: He's when he's with me, it's a million questions, Brandon, Why are you thinking about that?
Speaker 3: Why are you doing that? How can we get this
for the fans?
Speaker 4: Like you see the intensity of his curiosity and enthusiasm, which is really one of the keys to growth.
Speaker 3: So that's been a fun project for me.
Speaker 4: But I'm taking on a lot of projects that are very uncomfortable, that are not easy to figure out.
Speaker 3: But I figured no one else is doing it. If
I don't do it, no one's gonna And it's like XFL.
Speaker 4: You know, a lot of a lot of players now are swapping over the NFL and we go do their collectibles live golf.
Speaker 3: No one's ever done collectibles with golf. I'm the first
one to do it.
Speaker 4: Michigan collectibles, all those big ten schools, nothing really So the goal posts, I'm gonna be selling the turf Michigan without a perfect season.
Speaker 3: I'm doing the turf and you have won the championship, Like.
Speaker 4: Those are the things nobody's thinking of. But every student
can get a piece of the turf in the dorm room or whatever it is. So I'm trying to find
different projects that are unique, different that no one else is even thinking about. But they're fun and it's not
a big money play. But maybe down the road in
sport it's something like go look up dirt from Yank.
You say it's all at a premium, which is insane, but people.
Speaker 3: Like that stuff.
Speaker 2: What has it gone up in value since you sold it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's crazy. I mean fifty I've sold over fifty
million dollars of dirt.
Speaker 4: I'm trying to do it again with some of the other new programs I'm working with.
Speaker 3: But it's crazy, and you know it's even more crazy.
Speaker 1: Today's podcast is brought to you by Reties, the world's only reusable zip tie Reties What's in your Toolbox? For
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Speaker 4: I had an indication based up sitting on a couch with my wife which we talked about. I get fifty
leads a week now with people coming to me with their collections, they want to give it to me. And
what's great is I always say, you can have a bad day, but you can't have a bad pass. So
for me, they trust me, so they don't even answer for the paperwork. Here's my collection, and we're talking about
hundreds and hundreds in some cases a couple of thousand items that can be worth several hundred thousand dollars like brand and we trust you here.
Speaker 3: So when you go on collectbooks change like the site is.
Speaker 4: I think by the summer or of the fall, will probably be one of the most diverse, unique collectible websites.
And I dreamt this six years ago. And when you're
starting out, I got to tell you it's daunting. It's
gonna work. Is anybody gonna give me their stuff? Are
any teams gonna hire me?
Speaker 3: Like you don't know?
Speaker 4: And then all of a sudden, like we can't keep up with the volume. It's it's just been amazing. And
what's fun is some of the stuff that are created thirty years ago, it's coming back to me.
Speaker 2: Oh you're getting it back. Are you collecting that stuff back?
Speaker 3: Or I'm not allowed? No, I mean we do we
have some stuff that we keep for the office.
Speaker 4: Some of my original ideas they took off will put them up in the office. When I was doing themes
around the Heisman Trophy winners or themes around MVPs, I do.
Speaker 3: All these themes around Rookie of the Years like nobody does that.
Speaker 4: Those projects like thirty forty to fifty players right, bring a whole championship team together and do a team signing.
Speaker 3: Those are things that I was really noted for. It's
they're possible for an individual collector to do.
Speaker 4: And I think that's what you're supposed to be doing, is to do the things that your competitors can't do or won't do.
Speaker 3: Find what your competitors are not willing to do, and that's what you want to thrive on.
Speaker 4: I want to find my competitors are bad at now what they're good at. I'm not trying to copy them
what my competitors are doing and they're good at. I'm
trying to find out what they do, what they're not doing, what they're not doing, to beat them up that way every day twice on Sunday. I like it.
Speaker 3: I like it.
Speaker 2: You know what's so fun about it?
Speaker 1: It's like friendly competitiveness, right, and you're trying to outthink the competition in a sense, right, and the fact that you kind of created some of these markets, will call them right now, you're just reinventing yourself in a sense, right because now things, well, time has gone by.
Speaker 2: It's not nineteen, it's not the eighties anymore.
Speaker 1: But technology probably affords you like your dot com now, what's what's the company name again?
Speaker 4: Collectal exchange and just you know, I'm a technology immigrant.
Building collectible exchange dot com was I was so hard.
I mean, we didn't have to build an exchange, right, But you know the thing is, like that's the fun part is figuring it out and doing stuff.
Speaker 3: That's not easy. It's hard, but it's that's what the growth.
That's what gets you kind of going, is you're trying to figure this stuff out.
Speaker 4: Like, you know, I have a couple of partners that we did this together with two people from Signer that I took with me to build this new company.
Speaker 3: Like we didn't have to do this freaking idea.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we're a bunch of morons and we've made so many mistakes to like I want people to't.
Speaker 3: Understand, like we definitely led the league of mistakes. The
first three years, we did so many stupid things that didn't work. Yeah, but we kept trying. Like I think
more grades should be given in school for the T for trying. I think you're right, it should be a
grade T you're trying.
Speaker 2: I agree. I'll tell you.
Speaker 1: I call it falling forward, right because and there's a lot of it. There's more of that than not. And
I think people out there in the world look at people who have success and just think, well, it's so easy for them, but they don't realize the grind, the low points, the things that you really have to go through to get to where you are, right, and that's with the ups and downs, the trial and error falling forward and you know, to your.
Speaker 2: Point, I like a challenge.
Speaker 1: I don't like what was That's why we like I build these bikes. Everyone is completely unique and different. They're
all branded for big companies. That's all I do, okay,
And every single time I want to push myself past the last time because nothing about resting on my laurels, nothing about resting on my past success does anything for me.
Because if you're not moving forward into what's next, then I mean people are comfortable with that they can just live on that. I can't operate that way. I can't
build the same bike twice. I don't want to do things.
I want to do it, do it well, and then I'm moving on halfway through doing it.
Speaker 2: You see what I mean?
Speaker 1: And looking for you got to look for the diversity and things. Like you said, look for the loopholes, look
for the areas where people aren't really doing that.
Speaker 3: Comfort will bring in a misery. It will find somebody
who's miserable. They're board. It's because they stop being curious
and they must their enthusiasm.
Speaker 4: If you want to be happy. You know, I did
an employed It came in one day, so you know brand I'm not happy and I'm going to take it on the job back. I never promise your happiness. I
don't know why you bring me a happy shit to me, I promise you an opportunity, right, I promise you an opportunity to be something better than what you when you came here. On you have a happy problem, well you
may go home, get the temple, get the church.
Speaker 3: With you. I think to me, curiosity and growth.
Speaker 4: We should be promoting more of that, you know, promoting when your kid comes home and he's asking questions.
Speaker 3: That's what you want to promote that.
Speaker 4: You know your employees are coming here, they're being resourceful, curious, that's everything. We promote that and collectbullshade every day. I
make a big deal when when somebody comes to my office with an idea. It's almost like we hit the lotto,
because that's what you want. I mean, somebody cares, they're thinking,
and they're trying to do more than what they're asked to do. And that's everything if you really want to
be an industry leader, you know, to me, I have a new company. I woke up, broke, started from scratch
with this new company, and I'm just trying to build it up based on what I think fans and customers we want and also what.
Speaker 3: No one else is doing. And if I don't do it,
I feel like no one else is going to do it.
Speaker 4: And I have an indication that there's a lot of people out there that have cards, collections, they don't know what to do with the stuff. So I've become a
trusted source. And I think, you know, the fun of
it is the unknown, waking up broke, waking up like I don't know if it's going to work and I'm not broke.
Speaker 3: I've done well too well. I'm grateful, but you have
to trick yourself to be.
Speaker 2: To be great, to be hungry again rounded, you have.
Speaker 3: To trick yourself. You can't go and work it. You know,
I've made all this money. I'm good.
Speaker 4: I hate when people are all good. No one cares.
Where are you in the growth stage? You know you're
in a growing state. Have you got a bunch of
people that you're with together that realized that you don't know what you're doing, but we're doing it anyway, and we're going to be a figure it out group. We're
not afraid of not knowing, but we're excited to figure it out. And I've been able to get a good
group of people together. There's like twenty of us that
are on this highway with no red lights.
Speaker 3: We're not afraid. We had some really, we hit a
couple of potholes, but it doesn't get us off track.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like it, And you know it's so great because even for me, you are only as good as your team through the years. You know, everybody, Oh, they
they pour on the accolades. You're the head, you're the face,
but man, you can't do it without your people. They
just make you who you are in a sense, right, I.
Speaker 2: Mean you're limited to right.
Speaker 3: I wish I would have known that twenty years ago.
I lost a lot of good people at Steiner.
Speaker 4: It was I love the company, I love what I've built, but I've learned a lot of lessons when I removed from there, about quality of people and everything you can to retain them and respecting them and appreciating them and putting them in front of yourself. And you know, leaders
is about, you know, supporting those people and making sure that they're good and they have all the tools they need to be what they're.
Speaker 3: Trying to be.
Speaker 4: And when it's tin of there's so much light on me, you know, to do this, do that, and you get kind of caught up in it, I would say, like fame and all the meetia and everything's like a drug.
Speaker 3: You know, it's just and now I just don't get caught up in it. I'm I'm.
Speaker 4: I have a tremendous amount of empathy for my customers, and I have a lot of empathy for my staff.
Understand where they're at because if not, what are you doing?
And empathy, you know, putting myself in their shoes. What's
it like to be taking all of these cards day in and day out. So I try to put myself
in their shoes and make it easy for them and figure out ways I could make their job better and make sure they feel appreciated.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, it's good, man, it's good.
Speaker 3: You know it's good. It's a lot of years of managing, but.
Speaker 4: It's it's been fun to get a rebound like this and go figure out some of the mistakes you made.
Even though I did a lot of things right at Steiner, which is another thing, like, you know, don't be afraid to give yourself some credit. Sure, i left stein I
was feeling like a little down, But then I was like, wait a minute.
Speaker 3: I did a few things that were pretty damn good.
Speaker 4: You know, forty million autographs I've secured, and the whole Yankee Steyn of the stadium, breaking into the college market.
Speaker 3: There was a lot of cool things.
Speaker 4: But then I look at some of the stupid ass things I did, some of the mistakes I made, and talking Omni common to buy me was a pretty good sale too, you know, back in two thousand.
Speaker 3: So now I don't need that.
Speaker 4: You know when you're working, think about it, like what would you do for someone that you knew could never do anything back for you? Like to me, like I
work now every day, I don't know there's all pressure to make I don't have so much pressure work for a big company when they bought me to make money, make profit now like I don't have. The profit isn't
a number one priority? Doing really good work and taking
care of people is the number one priority. The process
the number one priority. If I make a little less
this year, I'm going to call my Wife's.
Speaker 3: Still gonna love me.
Speaker 4: If you can get into that mindset wherever you're working, maybe it's not the full mindset because the company you work for it doesn't allow it. But can you get
into some of that mindset, it's a beautiful thing and you'll find yourself so much happier because you're being allowed to make mistakes and grow.
Speaker 3: And that's that's where we have a collective change.
Speaker 4: Like we're growing, we're making mistakes, and we're slapping each other five for the successes and the failures.
Speaker 2: Right right, that's great, so cool.
Speaker 1: So if someone's got their collection and they want to they want to give hand it over to you. Would
they go to collectible exchange dot com or do they go directly to you? How do people get to you
if they have the sports Memora Bilia collection that they're like, Hey, I trust this guy, I know the name, I know what he's done.
Speaker 3: What's this information on the website. You can email me.
I'm going to give you the email for the free book.
If you have a collection, use email. It's Brandensteiner. In
nineteen eighty one at email, that's my special email, as.
Speaker 1: You're going to get.
Speaker 4: In nineteen eighty one is when I graduated Syracuse. Like
the last time I had completely pure freedom. Okay, So
I'd like to remember that moment when I graduated college, which I was the first person in my family to graduate college.
Speaker 3: So and I was the idiot in the family by the way.
Speaker 4: But I want to say one of the projects that I worked on that recently day, which I thought I think you'll find interesting, is I suppent the year with the NYPD. I wrote a book about I went around
with I did fifteen ride alongs with in the worst neighborhoods.
On a busy weekend night, I went to the crime lab.
I did the police academy. I took a gang down
at six in the morning. The twenty one gang members
did it all. I did a ride along up Syracuse too,
fifteen of them. And I wrote a book about why
we're having so much problems in our urban cities all over the country and why we're losing our police officers fast as we even know. The police force in this
country down about twenty five thirty percent. Every precinct is down.
And I'm not saying the police are all there's some problems and fix but there's some serious, serious problems with some of these neighborhoods. And you kind of go on
this voyage with me in this book. The book's called
the Ride Alongs, and you go on this voyage with me where you're in the police car with me. I
kind of taped everything. I went full eight hour ships
in the middle of the summer night, robbery, shootings, the whole thing, and every way the police when I went with them, and so I shared the stories about what what I saw, truthful, not sugarcoating it, not kissing the police as ass.
Speaker 3: Even though I love I love the police.
Speaker 4: I love the selflessness, I love what they do, but I wanted to be honest and fair about it. I
want people to understand that there's a really matter o flat this pancake is there's two sides, And there's definitely a side from the people that live in these neighborhoods where they need they need some help and they need a different kind of support mechanism and investment. And then
I think we need to figure out what we're going to go support our police because it's getting more and more unsafe. And also I want people to understand how
complicated is to keep us safe.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's complicated.
Speaker 3: It's not easy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I could see that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And you know, I think a lot of people take that for granted, especially people who aren't in these inner city areas that are a little rougher where they're really coming up maybe in poverty, and they're dealing with situations that you can you can never imagine what they're going through.
Speaker 4: You know, I'm sending you a copy of this book.
Make sure that I can. You can read this book.
Speaker 2: And where can you get it? Where can you get
the book?
Speaker 4: It's on collectible exhamee, It's on Amazon, it's not Barnes and Noble.
Speaker 3: The right along Okay, really really good book.
Speaker 4: All the money from this book is going to help Boys and Girls Club and redo the police stations. So
they're so beat down in the boroughs in New York.
So I take the money from the book sales and I speaking when people hire me, and I use it for charity, and I'll go and do a police station over That's how I got kind of intertwined with the police, is when an officer would be killed in the line of duty, I would go to that station, fix it up the muster room, I fix up the conference room.
I bring some Yankee players there are some athletes to honor the police office that had been falling. And then
I take the whole station to a Yankee cant they kind of have a barbecue, would celebrate.
Speaker 3: So I've done five of those.
Speaker 4: And then the money from this book and all the money from all my books and speak and go to charity.
I have a scholarship with Syracuse, or it could be just a local hospital. But at this point already, I mean,
I'm really lucky to have had some good luck in business.
But to me, it's only about the impact, the difference I'm making. So almost sometimes I'll go and do a speech,
and I always tell the people the charity I'm donating the money too from the speech, and they're like, you came here and spoke and not getting anything out of it. Said,
I'll get some out of it, the joy of fixing the children's juvenile you know, ward up with some really cool stuff and games and TVs.
Speaker 3: And then I'm getting some mattresses for.
Speaker 4: This boy's home. Yeah, I'm getting a lot out of it.
Maybe maybe something I said spuck sparked the.
Speaker 2: Court, you know, yeah, for sure. Wow, that's inspirational.
Speaker 4: Man. So what how?
Speaker 2: Why this?
Speaker 3: Why that? Why? Why?
Speaker 2: And like at all the things?
Speaker 1: Why the ride along with the police, What was the curiosity or how did where did that stem from?
Speaker 4: Well, I'm sitting I'm sitting in these I'm sitting in the police, you know, doing the fix up and everything.
It's a pretty you know, it's a pretty pretty long process.
It takes me a couple of months to do it.
And I'm just seeing insane amounts of crime and people are just getting arrested.
Speaker 3: Like like wow, you know, living up at Scarsdale, I'm white, I'm privileged.
Speaker 4: I mean, what do I see?
Speaker 3: What do I know? Car gets stolen.
Speaker 4: It's like it's like front page news and the products, like the card's getting stolen every hour, and I just felt like, wow, like these these officers.
Speaker 3: Are really killing it.
Speaker 4: They're working really hard, and then there's some unfortunate things that happen and then it blows up with somehow they become the bad the bad guys, and I got the sense of their job gotten kind of complicated. But I
wanted to see your firsthand. So I gave a keynote
speech to the top NYPD leaders in New York. It's
nine hundred of them once a year, and right afterwards at the time, the commissioner was at Kabab.
Speaker 3: He says Brandon. I loved your talking. Were great.
Speaker 4: Take my contact you need anything. As soon as you
got promoted to commissioner, I called them once. I wanted
I want to do this book. I sent them a copy.
Speaker 3: You got to have balls. I'm like, I do this book.
So he sends me a note. He goes, you have
per mission to do a ride along. I'm like, no, no,
I want carte blanche. I want to be able to
go anywhere and everywhere.
Speaker 2: In You're like, I want to badge right here.
Speaker 3: I wanted a bad I did. I wanted a badge.
I wanted the whole thing.
Speaker 4: And at some point I actually thought I was like a police officer but blind in it. You know, I'm
in the middle of arguments with people that were arresting.
I'm like officers, like, you know, you're not a copy, you know. But it was just I just I'm so
grateful to have this kind of access. I don't know
if it's ever going to happen again, you know, do you have the access I had to go and all the places I went. I went to the un the
day of the presidents were there, and I did the security patrol for the day. I did ride alongs in Brooklyn,
the Bronx, Manhattan. I got in the inside of it,
you know, and the officers wouldn't they hid nothing. Everything
was transparent, but some of the people on the streets they hid nothing. And I really got, I think, a
very cool person. Then I called judges, I called some
district attorneys and lawyers to get.
Speaker 3: Their view as well.
Speaker 4: I think the book is really well rounded, and it also gives some solutions to what I think we may need to start doing to maybe make sure we can secure and keep our leaves forth stable, but not to ignore the people in these neighborhoods, because they'd be the bigger investment. There's so many things lacking and so much
hopelessness in these neighborhoods. It would make you really sad.
It was very, very sad after these ride alongs and some of these neighborhoods to see, you know, how some of these people are living and it's so much third world country.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, that's terrible. Yeah, you know, it's interesting the hopelessness.
If you could fix that, then you make it easier for the police. They want to do the job. They
it increased, they increase. Everyone wins, right, both sides win.
But when when there's that much hopelessness and desperation, it makes it harder on the police, right, because these people are in a bad spot. So it's like this, yeah,
they arrested, they did something that wasn't good, but they're also dealing with a set of circumstances that probably most people can never imagine out there.
Speaker 4: You know, absolutely, it's a very complex matter that I think I'm hoping that when people read the book that they don't.
Speaker 3: Want to ignore that problem anymore.
Speaker 4: Yeah, not not just base their views on a couple of seconds on the newscast. When something really goes bad,
it goes to shit. That's not really the whole story.
Nor can we count the media for doing that anyway.
But you know, if you think about your health, your family, everything, no question.
Speaker 3: But you know, being safe, hey, it's big.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's important.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know, I've always felt very empathetic towards people, and when people do things that are wrong or bad, I always think why, Like what caused this in this person's life.
It's easy to just judge someone based on their arrest record or what they do or whatever they're issue is right, but what caused that person to be that way? And
if you really wanted to dig it's it would probably break your heart almost every time.
Speaker 2: That's the way I feel about it.
Speaker 3: So it's exactly right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I think it's really important not to rush the judgment, but to try and be And I think a lot of these police officers probably understand that. But
they're also under a tremendous amount of pressure, especially this day and age, with the way things are social media and otherwise it's it's it's gotten tougher for sure for police officers the pressure in some cases where they could be liable personally.
Speaker 2: I mean, wants that job, Go be a plumber.
Speaker 3: You know what you're asking them to do.
Speaker 4: Shit that's really probably not a should be under the description.
The amount of domestic violence is insane. Yeah, almost one
out of three calls was a domestic violence problem. Really,
I'm a twenty three year old officer going to deal with some a couple that's forty something years old. We
have a marrow problem, like right, parents age, it's tough, and police are getting younger.
Speaker 3: The older ones are checking out.
Speaker 4: After the twenty year run, We're getting a much younger force now, hard to recruit, hard to retain.
Speaker 3: This is a real issues that I bring up in the book.
Speaker 4: That are not a feeling, but their facts, and the facts are as that police officers are retiring as early as ever before, and we need the older officers to stay.
Speaker 3: And then recruiting has become really hard, well not only in New York but everywhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well it's become a thankless job in some areas.
Speaker 3: And not cool and not cool and not cool.
Speaker 2: And you know, if you're a young.
Speaker 1: Guy who's married, your wife's got to worry about if you're going to come home, because they are putting themselves in positions where things could go drastically wrong, right, I mean you could get to your point.
Speaker 4: Why, you know, how do we get into these neighborhoods give these people more support and make it a little bit better for them, and giving them a legitimate investment, not just a handout, but an investment, right to get some of those people some more hope that they can get their left to another level.
Speaker 3: That's a big part of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, right, teach them to fish, right, Yeah, exactly, good stuff, man, we'd be covering it all here.
Speaker 4: Man. I like it.
Speaker 3: I like it.
Speaker 2: It's good stuff, man, It's really good.
Speaker 3: God.
Speaker 4: I've been fortunate. When I look at all the things
that I've been able to do, it's just been fun.
And I don't feel like the pains dry. Like I
still feel like I got a lot of juice left in the engine and still looking to do some fun stuff and make a difference, make an impact. I love
that opportunity that I still have with these teams and the collectibles, and then taking some of the money that I'm making from this to go and help different charities and help different causes is coming from my comformen. It's
just such a blessing. Helping people is just such a
blessing to be able to help people and do the things I've been able to do. So hopefully I can
keep it going.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's great man, philanthropists. Man, we got you. So
that's great.
Speaker 1: All these years of success and you're paying it forward and you're starting over every time, and uh, man, I'm excited for you.
Speaker 2: How old are you now?
Speaker 3: Sixty six?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're young. You're a young guy.
Speaker 4: Yeh And yeah, feeling good, feeling you know, make trying to take care of myself is important, keep my health.
The Living on Purpose book, I talked a lot about, you know, how do you get to a high level of success? And I interview tons of people to figure
out why and how they became so successful and grab those nuggets and put it in the bunk.
Speaker 3: It's great.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's good. Anything else, Brandon.
Speaker 4: Can we cover a lot of Like I feel like I just went through memory later a second, I should pay you, like, as.
Speaker 3: You know, i'm setting your therapy.
Speaker 2: I'm sending you a bill. It's fine.
Speaker 3: We love your show man, Love what you're doing. Love
that sign behind you by the way.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's cool. Do you see this?
Speaker 2: You see the bike we did for Pisada.
Speaker 3: I love that bike. I love it, man, What do
you think of that thing? Hey?
Speaker 2: That that bike is twenty one years old?
Speaker 3: Now, I love that bike.
Speaker 4: I think part of me wants it from the court of my office and part of me wants to sell it.
Speaker 2: It's a good one. Yeah, it's a good one. I
think it's interesting. What do you think about this?
Speaker 1: So when we built that bike for Pasada, it was for the whore Hey, Pasada Foundation.
Speaker 2: It was a whole episode. I'm sure you're familiar. And uh,
it's interesting.
Speaker 1: Because when I look back at it, you know, we had the blessing of the Yankees.
Speaker 2: You know, he had to get all approvals and everything.
Speaker 1: I would have to believe this is the only like Yankees blessed motorcycle that is a Yankees theme on the planet.
Speaker 2: Wouldn't you say that? Does that sound like accurate? I
don't know.
Speaker 4: Did they build all seeing one other one that was like a crazy Yankee bike, but I don't know if it was quite like this one. But the guy was
going to the autographs, was side by like fifty Yankees, and I almost bought it, but I don't ride a motorcycle.
Speaker 3: But I bought it for the court, for the office.
But it wasn't half as nice as the one.
Speaker 1: You do you think they got permission from the Yankees to build it, Okay? See, I think that's what makes
this so you Obviously it was on the show and it was four pasada, but the fact that the Yankees said, yeah.
Speaker 2: Thumbs up, that's what you gotta do. Yeah, what a
what a great team that was.
Speaker 1: Now these are the These are the second set of tens.
The first bike got damaged. I have all of I
think two thousand and five's team signatures on the one tank.
Speaker 2: I should hear bring bring that a tank to me.
Speaker 1: I'm want to show you this. It got, it got damaged,
but like this is the original tin. So me and
my father restored this bike. But this I don't know
if you can see, I can see it.
Speaker 3: So this is all the see how it got.
Speaker 1: It got banged up, but still Hey and and so Maddingly was the batting coach at the time the entire team signed this tank. My brother Michael went there into
the dugout and they all signed it.
Speaker 4: So I love it.
Speaker 2: That was pretty cool, you know.
Speaker 1: So I kept the original tins because they're original, but they got they got banged up a little bit. So
this is my this is my I did a little bit more of a home team paint job there.
Speaker 2: You can see.
Speaker 3: That's beautiful, man, love it. Love the way you got
those autographs too. Those are cool. Yeah. So I love
when people get stuff themselves.
Speaker 4: That's the other thing. I don't feel like I have
to be the guy who has to get everything. I
love when I see people do something really creative and do it on their own. It's all part of the
deal and it makes that's what makes the business special, Like what you just did and said, that's what makes the business special. Not because I came up with every idea.
And now that I've been doing what I'm doing, I see some incredible collectors far greater than me. I mean,
just incredible ideas.
Speaker 3: That have come up with. How'd you do that? How'd
you come up with this? I love it? I just
love it.
Speaker 2: That's great. All right, well, Brandon, I appreciate your time.
Speaker 4: Man. I appreciate all the kind of words, and for
everybody out there, you know, I know you have a very strong New York base along nationally, but I appreciate the support.
Speaker 3: Really, it's amazing.
Speaker 4: You know, you start a new company and I'm sure who's coming with you, you know, tot Tom Cruise of the Goldfish, who's with me? Yeah, right, you know, but
you know, the customers they came, like so many customers came, you know, from Steiner now to collect with Shane. I'm
so grateful, like you know, it's you can't imagine. That's
that's what really got me get going, keeps me going, the fact that people have been working with for twenty thirty years of sticking with you when they go elsewhere.
There's other companies, but they've come back to me, and I really really appreciate it.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's good, all right, Brandon, thank you appreciating absolutely.
Brandon Steiner Collectible Exchange dot com. And he's got all
these great books and he rides along with the police.
Speaker 4: And this is the website, and put the website in the note so I can send people a free copy of the book.
Speaker 2: They let me know, Brandon, you're a true renaissance man.
Speaker 3: Appreciate you, My brother, have a good one. I look
forward to doing this again absolutely, Thank you, Thank you.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, thanks for listening to the Paul Junior Podcast, and make sure you follow me on.
Speaker 2: Social media and subscribe to my YouTube channel. Thanks.
About this episode
Brandon Steiner shares his journey from growing up in Brooklyn to becoming a pioneer in the sports memorabilia industry. He discusses how his early experiences in hospitality and sports bars led him to build a trusted brand centered on authenticity and customer trust. Steiner highlights the challenges of combating fraud in collectibles and how his close relationships with athletes helped establish credibility. He also talks about evolving his business to help collectors manage and trade their memorabilia, emphasizing honesty and fundamentals in building a lasting brand.
On this episode of the Paul Jr Podcast, Paul sits down with legendary entrepreneur Brandon Steiner, founder of Steiner Sports and Collectible Xchange, to break down how he built one of the most recognizable sports memorabilia brands in the world.
Brandon shares real stories from his journey—hustling in the early days, landing massive licensing deals with pro athletes and leagues, navigating failures, and scaling a business into a powerhouse.
This conversation goes beyond sports collectibles and dives deep into sales, branding, leadership, and entrepreneurship. Whether you’re a business owner, creator, or sports fan, this episode is packed with insights you can apply immediately.
Visit Collectible Exchange by clicking here: https://collectiblexchange.com/
You can purchase Brandon's book 'The Ride-Alongs' here: https://www.amazon.com/Ride-Alongs-Learned-Policing-Justice-System/dp/B0F7NRMHKY