Does anyone know the real Nicholas Burczyk story?

[RichardSimon]

I 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.
My question to the forum is: does anyone know the true story of Burczyk? 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.
I am wondering if anyone is familar with Burczyk. 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.
Does anyone here know the real story behind Burczyk? Is this totally a scam? Or was he really examining autographs in the 1990's?
I have tried to locate Mr Burczyk with no success.
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[HRBAKER]

Richard,
I don't know the answer to any of your questions but I wouldn't touch any of those with the proverbial ten footer. They may be real for all I know but the COAs certainly wouldn't give me any comfort to that effect based on the limited amount of info you were able to find out.

[RichardSimon]

Richard,
I don't know the answer to any of your questions but I wouldn't touch any of those with the proverbial ten footer. They may be real for all I know but the COAs certainly wouldn't give me any comfort to that effect based on the limited amount of info you were able to find out.

I think the forum members here know me well enough to know I would not touch these with a 100 ft pole :):).
I am just trying to pin down the story of Burczyk.
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[HRBAKER]

Richard I knew that. ;)

These "vanilla" COAs could be used with anything down the line as well.

[RichardSimon]

Richard I knew that. ;)

These "vanilla" COAs could be used with anything down the line as well.

Yes, that is the scary thing about those COA's. A copy machine/printer can make a forger semi-credible on ebay at any moment.
The one consolation is that the autographed items I am seeing, with these COA's, are selling for pennies on the dollar. $12-$50 for Mantle, Williams, Dimaggio, Koufax and even for dual signed photos of those players. Some items of those guys I have seen offered at $29.99 and they dont even sell. So, the good news is that the ebay buyer is smartening up.
It also appears that many of the low prices realized sale items are winding up in the hands of another seller and then a few days later, the item appears again.
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[sago]

This site could be the source for some of the material:

http://shop.alwaysatauction.com/iSynApp/allAuction.action?sid=192&selectedCatId=12645&query=&rc=20&sort=timeleft_asc&layout=$layout (http://shop.alwaysatauction.com/iSynApp/allAuction.action?sid=192&selectedCatId=12645&query=&rc=20&sort=timeleft_asc&layout=$layout.)

The ads indicate that you may contact their customer service department with any questions about Burcyzk.

I found lots of references to him on the net; none of them were postive.

[FUBAR]

I forwarded his home address and phone number, hopefully it is still valid!

[RichardSimon]

This site could be the source for some of the material:

http://shop.alwaysatauction.com/iSynApp/allAuction.action?sid=192&selectedCatId=12645&query=&rc=20&sort=timeleft_asc&layout=$layout (http://shop.alwaysatauction.com/iSynApp/allAuction.action?sid=192&selectedCatId=12645&query=&rc=20&sort=timeleft_asc&layout=$layout.)

The ads indicate that you may contact their customer service department with any questions about Burcyzk.

I found lots of references to him on the net; none of them were postive.

A customer service dept. of an autograph seller who is using Burczyk COA's, well I doubt if they will tell me anything. But I am trying.
And Jim - that phone number has been changed to an unknown number.
The mystery of Mr Burczyk continues.

[murphusa]

He was a handwritting expert who lived in Wisconson. He worked for the Courts and did not do sports. All court documents where he was an expert witness always include his title, Doctor.

He was also involved in the pro life movement and wrote articles on the subject and for a short time a blog.

http://www.blogger.com/profile/17245865015773204600

This is just a case of someone usings his identity to put on a fake certificate

[RichardSimon]

He was a handwritting expert who lived in Wisconson. He worked for the Courts and did not do sports. All court documents where he was an expert witness always include his title, Doctor.

He was also involved in the pro life movement and wrote articles on the subject and for a short time a blog.

http://www.blogger.com/profile/17245865015773204600

This is just a case of someone usings his identity to put on a fake certificate
Murph - considering the board does not really know you (2 posts) please don't take offense at my questions, but how can we confirm what you are saying? What is your source for this information? I think that it might be true (the part about fake certs), but I really need proof of what you say. If the certificates are fake, which is certainly a strong possibility, I would like to be able to prove that.

[murphusa]

Richard

Sorry , I just don't post to this site. You know me. My name 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

Let me google or yahoo, you, Spence or any of the other autograph guys and you can find a wealth of info but nothing on the Doctor. If he was so good and involved in the hobby, his letters would be gold. But all you can find is legend and nothing more. And what is the source of the google links, all the same one or two quotes

Google Charles Hamilton, he has been dead for over 13 years but you can find lots on his work.

[RichardSimon]

Richard

Sorry , I just don't post to this site. You know me. My name 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

Let me google or yahoo, you, Spence or any of the other autograph guys and you can find a wealth of info but nothing on the Doctor. If he was so good and involved in the hobby, his letters would be gold. But all you can find is legend and nothing more. And what is the source of the google links, all the same one or two quotes

Google Charles Hamilton, he has been dead for over 13 years but you can find lots on his work.

Thanks for clearing that up.
Ah, the good old days of the Philly show, how this business has changed.

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[Fuddjcal]

i don't have any proof, but I heard a bunch of his stuff was stolen back in or around 1993. That's why so many of the certs show the same dates from September of 1993 or so and that he was the Author of a book on Gestalt Theories, never did Sports certificates. He was the Donald Fryingpangianni before his time.

The fake certs have evolved on e-bay over the years from a small sticker attached to the back of the horrible putrid fake photo to the cert you show in your pics....now used on anything, like a ball or pennant. As long as E-bay allows this trash, Low life scum bag sellers will keep on jerking off the American public moronic auto collector with E-Bay as their accomplice.

[Fuddjcal]

as a footnote to the original post, here's the Fonz doing his thing on E-bay this month about Burzsack ack ack and another cheater f'er selling a boat load of these forgeries on the Bay.

I just love this guy for doing these video's challenging the sellers of obvious forgeries.!!!!!!! Keep up the HEAT!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOZencw1XFo&feature=sub

[bigtrain]

Just a few minutes research, I found a listing for Nicholas R. Burczyk in Waukesha, Wisconsin. He is a retired forensic document examiner in his mid-70s. Sounds like could be the same guy. Anyone want to give him a call? His phone number is listed in the book.

[RichardSimon]

Thanks for looking up a phone number Tom but that listed number of his is out of service and his current number is unlisted or its the phone number of an old lady whose husband was Nicholas Burczyk (not the one we are interested in) and who was ripped off in some identity theft scam. At least that is what she told me.
According to the information from various ebay autograph sellers, he was/is a professor, author, lecturer and court qualified forensic examiner who authenticated thousands of baseball autographs in the early 1990's. How amazing that the owners of those autographs sat on them for 17-18 years and now at virtually the same time, they have all decided to sell them at the very absolute lowest prices that Mantle and Williams signed pictures have ever sold for.
I saw one seller ( I call them sellers because they are not autograph dealers, autograph dealers do have some knowledge about their product and most have a non ebay presence in the hobby ) claim that Burczyk authenticated for Scoreboard. Amazing how those COA's never appeared until now. That Scoreboard would spend all that money to have a forensic examiner examine their autographs and never use his certs.
If Mr Burczyk was all the things that the ebay sellers claim he is then where is that information? I could find nothing on the internet to subtantiate those claims. Nothing he has written, nothing about any lectures and nothing that details any court case he could have been involved in and nothing in his past about any sports autographs authentication. The only thing I find is negative comments about his authentications from various blog posts. The only biographical information is from the ebay sellers who make the claims I wrote about above. And the ebay sellers get that information from the ebay seller that they bought the crap from or from the seller on other auction sites that they bought their crap from. There are general auction closeout type sites now that are auctioning jewelry, appliances and autographs and the suckers are buying them there and then foisting them on suckers on ebay. It is one ridiculous merry go round.
In my opinion the whole Burczyk thing is one big scam.

[Fuddjcal]

SO IT SEEMS!!!! Great, insightful and useful stuff on your website too.

I 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. I found quite a bit more than is available today (is that even possible to completely delete a persona) I can remember finding he had written a book on Gestalt Theory and actually seeing the cover then. I can find NOTHING of the sort today. He had supposedly taught some classes at the Handwriting Institute on Gestalt Theory??? How that makes sense, I have no idea. Here's some chicks resume touting the Apprenticeship
she did with him?

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

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

Lastly, the actual certificate version of this erased persona has just been around recently so someone has printed up a BOATLOAD of these and e-bay has let them get away with it so far. We should start reporting EVERY LAST BURCZYK listing and demand e-bay to start removing these. They have been doing something, as 2 of the last members featured on Tom Tresh2 Video's has been "NLRU" by E-bay.

[drc]

If a court-certified expert puts the guy on her resume, that's good evidence the guy was a legitimate forensic whatever. I can't imagine she would make up a name on her resume-- and stay court certified. You might even get into legal trouble and lose your license if you submitted a made up resume to the court.

Being a court certified forensic expert doesn't mean you can authenticate Mickey Mantle autographs (as we all know), but I would guess Nicholas was a real forensic expert.

[drc]

Also just noticed that the guy is listed as having taught a "graphology" course and had the course material copyrighted with the Library of Congress in 1973.

[murphusa]

I think it is a shame that we are dragging this poor guys name through the mud. Of the 99.9% of the items that carry a coa with his name on them are fake, and so are the coa's

[RichardSimon]

I think it is a shame that we are dragging this poor guys name through the mud. Of the 99.9% of the items that carry a coa with his name on them are fake, and so are the coa's

I really think that is the point we are now making.
The COA's are fake as are the items.