The few Steiners I've seen recently are simply marked "Germany," which has always seemed ambiguous to me.
The following is a snippet from a PM I sent to another member in May of 2020. Portions of it may answer some Steiner questions for a few.
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A few days ago, I saw you had added some neat stuff to the Steiner thread and I thought you might be interested in the following. That thread contains some very wrong and/or misleading information:
After the Army’s M19 (Farrand Optics started development in1955) went bust, they went, in the early 90s, with the Steiner Commander without the compass (middle unit in the attachment). This was when Steiner was being imported by Pioneer Marketing in New Jersey and the binocular was called the Army’s M22. This was also about the time of their “Auto Focus” crap (see pages 12-16 in my first bino book) was becoming legendary and believed by far too many. By the end of the 90s, the Army was back with the with Fujinon. Around that time, both the army AND navy were using the Fujinon AR (Nautilus) or the same animal as the Swift Seahawk (Katsuma JB 2 and Kamakura JB133). Depending on who, in procurement, your rank allowed you to finagle, you might get yourself a Fujinon
FMTR-SX or a Swift
Storm King. But that was the exception—not the rule. Only two others were even contenders in both optical performance and rigidity.
When Pioneer Marketing dropped Steiner in the early part of this century, it was picked up by Burris Optics of Greely, Colorado. In 2002 or 2008—depending on who you believe—Steiner was purchased by Beretta Holding and importation was shifted to Burris Optics. The product is mostly Chinese made.
Of course, even when advertising was making Steiner a legend, much of their inventory was already coming from Asia.
Yes, I know there is some mystique about Steiner and military and law enforcement organizations. Most deal considerably more on clever advertising and those who tend to believe everything they see in print. But as it has been noted, more reputable companies have no need to follow that pattern and happily allow those with more misinformation under their belts to sell Steiner by word of mouth and binocular forums
. I didn’t fail to carry Steiner because of the PRODUCT but rather the crap they tried to feed me in person and in advertising. When Sven Harms, Pioneer’s sales manager, promised to be happy with me selling the product my way, I welcomed them onboard. I especially liked the original,
two piece, 7x50 Navigator II (the left most bino in the photo) and the original, roof Peregrine ...
www.optics-trade.eu
And to be certain you know, I was not slinging ANY negativity toward you. Banish the thought!
