Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Chad B on February 24, 2011 at 2:49pm

So, is the latest article on autograph alert not accurate. It sure seems to make JSA look really bad. It does not say Morales is good but it does show that JSA does not judge an autograph on the autograph only.

Thanks for having these discussions on the site.

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Permalink Reply by DB on February 25, 2011 at 1:18am

Steve an excerpt that seems to go along with your hypothesis;

 

"This is Jim Murphy and my business since 1988 is the Philadelphia Bat CO. In the 90's and early 00"s you and I set up next to each other at a few of the Philly shows.
At a show in 93 in Baltimore I was offered a pack of certificates with Nicholas Burczyk name on them. I was told it would help my sales. When I declined the seller told me I was making a mistake.
Couldn't find out too much about Nicholas Burczyk then and you can't find it now. Why? He was never in the business"

 

The only other inclusion of his name is found on the following individual's resume Jeanne Drew who cites she did an apprenticeship with a

• Nicholas Burczyk, Ph.D. – National Handwriting Institute,
  Burczyk-Gestalt System

http://www.drewconsultingltd.com/jeannedrew.shtml

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Permalink Reply by DB on February 25, 2011 at 1:39am

Travis, our very own "trash talking" Fuddjcal, Chuck Tapia, would disagree.  Since he withdrew in protest of GA's SIPE not cleaning up EBAY over the fraudulent Mantles on display.  I'll post an excerpt of his....  I am sure he will be estatic to know that Jolly Ole Nick is no longer welcome on EBAY.  But like so many others that will never be enough...

 

 ."..remember a couple of years ago, when Global actually had a good rep, there were plenty of the Burczyk pics to be had. Mostly, the Mantle, Mays Black and white shot and the Williams & Mantle color shot. These had a stickers on the back only with his info and an initial. I remember doing research on this 2 years ago..."

 

and one other from our very own well respected Richard Simon;

 

 "am sure the autograph people here are aware of the Nicholas Burczyk COA's which are flooding ebay now. Mostly connected with autographs of Mantle, Williams, DiMaggio, Koufax and original 500 HR items including the Atlantic City show 500 HR litho.
The ebay sellers claim that he was retained in the early 1990's by a collector/autograph chaser/company to authenticate autographs. That he was the first forensic authenticator to be retained in such a manner. However, the COA's that are shown in ebay ads do not mention any item. They state: "I have made a review of the Autograph that corresponds with this certificate." No mention of what the autograph is. No COA I have ever seen, even the dubious ones, would write up a COA in that way. They all mention the item and some of them will picture the item.
The usual COA of his, that is shown with most ebay auctions, lists him as having 11 different offices in Florida. The phone numbers of those offices are listed on the COA.
I called four of the phone numbers. Two of them are disconnected, one is for a maid service and one is for an insurance company.
A few of the ads on ebay show a sticker on the back of the item, with a date from the 1990's and a few scribbled initials along with his name. This sticker corresponds to nothing."

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Permalink Reply by Fuddjcal on February 25, 2011 at 3:33pm

On the contrary tough guy, Fudd would AGREE, I think you meant to say! I agree with just about everyones view point here on this subject. Great discussion.

Anyway, Almighty Fudd is back with the fantastic news about Moral ASS and Dr. Birdsick and their Ban from E-bay!!!!!! Now, AAU, TTA who is 1/2 of STAT, and of course all the fake Global items that still liter their site have to come next? Lets hope it doesn’t take 2 years

 I apologize DB if I offended you with my tone last month but I've been "flaring like a pack of hemorrhoids" and was just disgusted that nothing been done in regards taking off the most obvious of forgeries....especially when you were giving props to Steve Sipe at Global. He may be a great individual and authenticator, I don't know, like I’ve said,  the only legitimate Global Mantle I have, bears his name. All the obvious corny fakes have Mike Baker Certs. I just think that he should do more to protect their name if they are going to keep it relatively the same. Of course he didn't answer my last tirade and here's hoping he'll see that we are a little bit further in the never ending battle and start doing something about it before Global does end up on E-bays banned list, which is where they belong right now.

 One thing about Moral Ass is this.....let's see some other legitimate stuff of his? It seems the only real items I've seen him cert, in what I collect,  are just very obvious forgeries. Unless he's peeling JSA or Upperdeck stickers, all his stuff fails. I think he's worse than a broken clock....at least it's right twice a day!

 

The thing that I have to wonder and laugh about regarding Birdsick, is what this gentleman who disagrees with my opinion, Tony P. (possibly Tony Podsada-My Favorite Players????) told me…

 

“i have verifiable court documents to prove what i'm telling you. so even if you disagree with the findings of burczyk, remember mantle did not and it was i who fought scoreboard and it was i who beat them, and it was i who sat with mantle at over 200 signings over my 31 plus years in this buisness. oh yes it was i who produced all the product for home shopping, qvc, j.c. penney's etc.,etc., etc.. so please forgive me if i disagree with you. but i do respect your opinion. by the way mantle loved burczyk when he met him. respectfully yours, tony p.”.

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Permalink Reply by Kyle M. on February 25, 2011 at 12:24pm

Was Burczyk with GAI in the past or is this ANOTHER circumstance would hundreds of fake Mantles/Williams/Mays being authenticated?

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Permalink Reply by Fuddjcal on February 25, 2011 at 4:10pm

No Kyle, this is just another clusterF*** with 1000's of Mantle's, Williams, Mays. Throw in a little Joltin Joe DiMaggio, and add a pinch of  SandyKoufax. Take a couple of rolls of Global stickers and a box of Mike Baker Global Certificates, Stir well by being on the E-bay approved authenticator list and you have a verified CLUSTER F***

 

It's really criminal to be honest. Wiith a direct link to Steve Sipe at GAI GLOBAL Authority LLC or whatever their name is, from other Members on this site, They choose to do nothing, to look the other way, and say "It's not us it's the old Global".

Shut up and change your name or do something to protect it besides sitting on your hands and covering your eyes. Us COLLECTORS & DEALERS alike ARE SICK OF IT.

 

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Permalink Reply by George Papania on February 24, 2011 at 2:38pm

 

Christopher Morales, Nick Burzyk and many others hosed the autograph market. True.

However I'm still with Travis on this one. All it takes is one or two real ones that will now be rejected

to ask where will this stop. Maybe I should quit my day job and just OBEY BLINDLY and only buy

Ebay and JSA stock. To me it is always the challenge for "finding" a great piece no matter if it's Sotherbys ,JSA ,Morles, Heritage Auctions or a Flea Market.Even Morales gets lucky to find legit signatures.

Flagging or earmarking his type auctions on Ebay so that bidders can make an informed  choice is what I would consider good enough, after all Paypal will get your money back.

My 2 cents worth,

George Papania

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Permalink Reply by CJCollector on February 24, 2011 at 2:52pm

I totally disagree with you, George.  The problem being that 80% of those that buy autographs on Ebay haven't a clue about autographs.   This has to stop at some point.   Ebay must do all it can to protect buyers.   Many autograph items with a Morales COA are purchased outside of Ebay; then that buyer will attempt to flip it on Ebay for as much as a 1000% markup because Ebay's viewing population is larger than any other auction site.   Those 80% can't make an "informed choice" because they simply have no idea what they are looking at.  And it is Ebay's job to protect them.  Not only protect those buyers, but those that are trying to sell authentic autographs can't compete with the final bid prices of the "bad stuff."   In other words, Ebay must also protect the sellers of legitimate autographs.   And those 80% are convinced  that the title of "Forensic Examiner"  is assurance that they are purchasing a authentic autograph.  That's the problem.  It cannot continue.

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Permalink Reply by George Papania on February 24, 2011 at 3:03pm

Chris, I simply wish that Ebay could protect those with lesser signature education with a Flagging or Warning type label in these type auctions. I am definetly no Morales or Nick Burzyk fan.

But for them to ban I think is excessive, not just  for Morales or Nick Burzyk.

I disagree with ban censorship instead of warnings to help educate the potential buyer.

Unless Ebay is better at this than you and I. I have bought (less than 1%) some legit signatures and honestly didn''t care who whose COA came with them if any.

God Bless all here for these discussions.

George

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Permalink Reply by Jim McFiver on February 25, 2011 at 4:34am

Christopher, I respectfully disagree. Your statement that "80%" of those autograph buyers using eBay have no idea what they're doing is preposterous, elitist and condescending.

For me, eBay is a marketplace linking sellers and buyers. They also provide several methods of vetting the seller before taking the leap into a purchase (feedback, previous sales, Top-Rated, etc.). There is also something called an internet search, which, if used properly, is quite helpful in providing access to more thorough research tools. While not perfect, they are helpful tools which a thoughtful person can determine if the time is taken. If the buyer forgoes that step, according to your post, you're saying eBay must drag the horse to the water.

As I wrote in a previous post here on another topic, during the early days of eBay, I was shocked at the vast amount of fakes in Beatle autographs. Having studied them since 1964, Beatles autographs were, for me, the Holy Grail of collecting. It upset me to no end that a band which stood for such high integrity would be the subject of such tremendous amount of fraud that I started emailing sellers, bidders and buyers, gently explaining that, in my opinion, their items were fakes. Only one person ever positively responded positively; the rest told me to get lost, told me I was full of s**t, and to back off as I "didn't know who I was messing with." 

 Look at all the rules and government agencies set up for banking regulation. Did it stop a monster like Bernie Madoff? From Wikipedia:

 "Concerns about Madoff's business surfaced as early as 1999, when financial analyst Harry Markopolos informed the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that he believed it was legally and mathematically impossible to achieve the gains Madoff claimed to deliver. According to Markopolos, he knew within five minutes that Madoff's numbers didn't add up, and it took four hours of failed attempts to replicate them to conclude Madoff was a fraud. He was ignored by the Boston SEC in 2000 and 2001, as well as by Meaghan Cheung at the New York SEC in 2005 and 2007 when he presented further evidence. He has since published a book, No One Would Listen, about the frustrating efforts he and his team made over a ten-year period to alert the government, the industry, and the press about the Madoff fraud."

Ultimately, it is up to the buyer to protect themselves from these online bandits, clowns and thugs. From the days in the cave of man's first trade to today's global market, it is and always will be, 'buyer beware.'

If someone is going to drop $3000 on a signature, and hasn't taken the time to fully research their purchase, is it really "eBay's job to protect them"? In my opinion, a constitutional amendment couldn't protect such stupidity.

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Permalink Reply by CJCollector on February 25, 2011 at 4:53am

George, the one great thing about forums like this is that we can all agree to disagree at one time or another.   Steve, is a viewer of my videos and he will tell you that no one blames the buyers for 50% of this mess as much as I do.  To put it bluntly, I bash the buyers on my videos for being "morons."   If buyers don't buy that garbage then the sellers are out of business.  Buyers keep the sellers of forgeries in business.   When I write that "Ebay must protect the buyers" really translates into "protecting the sellers of authentic autographs."  This is what happens.  Buyers of forgeries bring down the values of legitimate autograph collections.   Sellers of authentic autographs and owners of authentic autographs are getting killed in today's market.  Also, those buyers of forgeries (most of them) eventually try to sell them and they eventually discover they bought a forgery and they leave the hobby.  It affects everyone in the hobby.  It has to stop somewhere and steps must be taken to step this horror.   Ebay has taken the correct step to protect consumers.

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Permalink Reply by DB on February 25, 2011 at 5:18am

Jim, while an ideal thought it's just that.  Let the Buyer Beware and EBay has provided it's "quick opinion" for a fee and that is about as much as they do. 

 

Oh sure, in their forum there are guidelines and warnings and way too often some good ones go unread but the basic buyer of items is vastly uneducated and that is what keeps Ebay in business and that is what allows places like coaches corner, exchange at auction, always at auction and a host of other places to keep providing this "crap" over and over again.

 

It's only when someone gets burned do they rise up and rather give them self a dope slap it's easier to slap at somone else.  It's far from elitist.  And once the anger subsides there could be many ways to go including findinga Jolly Ole Nick COA and shipping it off to coach's corner or put it up for sale on Craigslist.

 

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