You would figure a business named Tickets4Ever.com might prove a pretty good source for the toughest regular-season sporting ducat this town has seen in arguably a quarter-century, if ever: Eagles-Steelers two days hence.

You can 4get that.

"There ain't no tickets around. That's the story," a local broker for Tickets4Ever said on his cell phone the other day. He declined to give his name.

In fact, a few people interviewed for this story declined to give their names, if they didn't hang up first, or soon thereafter. Color this business -- known as (a.) buying-selling, (b.) brokering, (c.) scalping, or (d.) all of the above -- somewhere between the hues of gray and shady, because those with tickets were asking for prices a large cut above what state law allows: a 25-percent profit over face value.

A $56 ticket in the midfield Section 211 for the game against Philadelphia was being offered for as much as $1,690 on Election Day, and apparently voters continue to approve prices anywhere between a 500-percent and 2,900-percent markup.

"You can't locate them," the local broker continued. "If you can locate them, you're going to pay $300, $400 [for previously cheap seats]. The Steelers, they got hot. Then, the Eagles got hot. Now, no one's selling. It's the worst I've ever seen.

"Got another call. That's the story." Click.

Steelers tickets are tough to lay hands on, anyway. They have been passed down from generation to generation since the Super Bowl successes of the 1970s. Upon completion of larger-capacity Heinz Field in 2001, Steelers officials were able to clear the decks of 3,000 names remaining on the season-ticket waiting list from 1984-1994, although some 25,000 remain on that list from the past decade, according to Steelers spokesman Ron Wahl.

Last May, when Steelers tickets officially went on sale, the Eagles-Steelers game was the first to sell out. Yet this game has grown into the Biggest Game This Week, or a Super Bowl Preview, or some other capitalized hyperbole. That's all due to the NFC Philadelphia club's 7-0 start and the local AFC franchise's 6-1 start, which includes a romp last Sunday over the only other undefeated team in the league, the defending-champion New England Patriots and their heretofore 21-game winning streak.

The hot ticket suddenly got a lot hotter.

On a minimum of eight separate Web sites, you can find the same seats for sale at an array of prices, some of that ascribed to the individual site's take or handling fees. For instance, those seats in the aforementioned Section 211 ranged from $1,210 on MyTicketSource to $1,480 on Tickets4Ever. In other areas and on the various sites, though, the market seemed to slip from Tuesday to yesterday, with some midfield seats falling $100 and $200 off earlier prices, "down" to between $825 and $1,140 -- and these are for seats in a Heinz Field with an average face value of $54.55, going by the last survey of Team Marketing Report.

The sampling was taken at random from the dozens of sites and hundreds of ticket brokers. Business appears to be brisk, too: TixOutlet went from 333 available tickets Tuesday to 106 yesterday, MyTicketSource from 184 to 90. Oh, and many of these sites also offer Eagles-Steelers parking passes, anywhere from $50 to $265.

These individual ticket-sellers control those tickets and passes, though, not the brokers. The ticket-holders spread their sales listings over different sites, waiting for the first or highest bidder. That's why such local brokers as Dan with Weirton, W.Va.-based TixOutlet moaned about having nothing in hand to barter directly: "Anyone can go and post tickets. I got nothing. I sold a busload to people before the season, and sold them cheap.

"The people who are trying to sell them high [this week], they think it's a playoff ticket."

The demand looks to approximate that of a postseason game.

On eBay, the bidding for a seat in the low 211 rows went from $1,225 Tuesday to $1,525 yesterday, although experts -- i.e. fans looking for by-game tickets -- contend that purchases on the famed online auction site can be met with varying results. Indeed, there are counterfeit tickets in general circulation, or seats already traded or sold behind your virtual back, or merely prices inflated beyond conventional wisdom, if there is such a thing in this business.

Two back-to-back posters at the Stillers.com fan site wrote about their different fortunes with eBay: Dave8105 got tickets for Patriots-Steelers in July for little more than $100 apiece, but SteelPerch swore off the place (and some others) because of the up-to-10-times markup.

SteelPerch advised a route different from online sites. He counsels that folks try the traditional game-day scalper roaming the sidewalks or a fan attempting to part painlessly with extra seats while still tailgating in the parking lots. He said scalpers may whittle their asking price to as low as $30 over face value shortly before game time.

Who's got 2? Who needs 2?
This newspaper had 39 advertisements in its Classified section on Tuesday concerning the purchase or sale of Eagles-Steelers seats. The number climbed to 45 Wednesday and 49 yesterday.

Don Renninger, of North Hills, placed such an ad asking, "Reasonable Steeler Tix?" His finding: "None. They're pretty much through the roof. Know anyone with any?

"It's at the point now, they're so high, it's the equivalent to the AFC championship game in 2001. I got in there, but I spent more than I wanted to."

Deputy Attorney General Marcia Telek DePaula warns that state law allows only a 25 percent or $5 markup over face value, whichever is higher. But she realizes the feverish Steelers marketplace.

"Right now, that the Steelers are winning, there's a big demand for them," she said.

When there are problems with the supply -- say, counterfeit tickets, exorbitant charges or tickets aren't handed over -- that's where authorities want to step in. Arresting violators of the law is difficult, though. DePaula said she and the Attorney General's office are preparing to bring to trial a suit against Robert A. and Jamie L. Mazzie of Upper St. Clair, who operate a sports-and-concert ticket brokerage called AAA Prime Time Tickets, Inc., based in Wheeling, W.Va. The suit charges the Mazzies sold tickets for far more than allowed by state law.

Mostly, though, it depends on authorities such as the City of Pittsburgh police to intervene or the consumer to call with complaints.

The Steelers also are concerned about counterfeits and scams, said Wahl, the Steelers' spokesman. "That's why we always warn our fans not to buy tickets from anybody other than our official ticket agency, our ticket office. Other than that, you don't know what you're buying."

Black-and-gold birthright
Some of Tom Stein's co-workers at Allegheny General Hospital ask him how to get Steelers tickets. His pat response: "You inherit them."

His father, Bob, a carpenter and cabinetmaker, got together with a bunch of Lawrenceville buddies in the 1950s and bought seats to games in Forbes Field, then Pitt Stadium, then Three Rivers Stadium.

"As they all started dying off or couldn't climb to the sixth level of Three Rivers anymore, they started handing them down to the next generation," Tom Stein said.

So, in 1989, he returned from an Army stint at Fort Hood, Texas, and has been attending Steelers home games ever since, first with his father and now with his son, Ryan, 11.

"And they'll probably stay in my possession," Tom Stein added, pointing to his inheritor son, "until I can't climb up to the fifth level of Heinz."

This Franklin Park family was in their mustard-colored seats Sunday for Patriots vs. Steelers, a game that broke the Heinz Field record with a crowd of 64,737, some 287 people over capacity. Part of the reason for the record numbers was the fact most ticket-holders actually showed up, instead of leaving a few ducats unused and staying in the comfort of their Barcoloungers. Another reason was temporary seating erected in the north end zone as a test run for the reunion Sunday of the 1979 Super Steelers.

Sorry, but those seats are for special guests of the Steelers, sponsors and "what-not," Wahl said.

But, if you're looking ahead to the Nov. 28 Redskins-Steelers game, there's an 18-ticket suite on TickCo.com on sale for $28,250.