The 42-year-old reliever became the first pitcher to reach 600 career saves when he polished off a Brewers’ victory over the St. Louis Cardinals Tuesday night.

The lithos are being produced and will be available for purchase in the Brewers’ team store later this week. Fewer than 150 will be available to the public, and the lithograph is the same artwork that was presented to Hoffman by the Brewers to recognize the 600th save.

The painting was created by noted artist Janet Olney.

Among the options available to collectors:

- 51 copies (representing his uniform number) have been autographed and numbered by Trevor Hoffman (unframed are $250 each; framed are $500).

- 60 additional prints are not autographed and unframed ($25 each).

A small number of these Lithographs will also be available through the Auction section of Brewers.com.

A portion of the proceeds from the sale of all of the lithographs will support charities of  Hoffman’s choice.

He’s regretting it now.

Green sold the jersey he wore in last year’s Independence Bowl game for $1,000.  That’s an NCAA rules violation and on Wednesday, Green was suspended for four games.

Legendary Auctions, which is run by some of Mastro’s former colleagues, announced Wednesday that it would put the collection up for auction in December.  No mention was made of why Mastro has decided to liquidate.

The collection includes numerous one-of-a-kind and rare pieces.

A few of the noteworthy items being sold from the collection
include:

• A 1927 Babe Ruth Yankees payroll check – cashed the day Ruth
hit his 60th Home Run;

• A signed handprint of Babe Ruth;

• A 1917-1921 Babe Ruth H&B game used bat;

• A 1927 Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig Barnstorming advertising poster;

• A 1915 Champion Boston Red Sox panoramic team photo featuring Babe
Ruth;

• A 1910s “Turkish Trophies” display (in original frame)
with Ty Cobb L-1 Leather;

• A 1909 “Colgan’s Chips” Honus Wagner advertising
sign;

• A 1910 Addie Joss Day panorama;

• A 1903 Carl Horner American League team composite.

• An 1894 Temple Cup print;

• An 1884 “Climax Tobacco” composite with original mailing
tube;

• A 1934 “Tour of Japan” team signed ball with original
Tamazawa box;

• A Babe Ruth “Home Run Special” single signed ball;

• A 1942 “War Bond Effort” team signed ball;

• A Babe Ruth signed store model bat;

• A 1954 Wilson Wieners complete set (with backs) uncut sheet on
advertising display;

• A 1928 “Fro Joy” Babe Ruth die-cut counter sign;

• A 1933 Goudey uncut sheet (24 cards) including Babe Ruth;

• A 1926 Champion New York Yankees Cosmo team panoramic photo;

• A 1912 Champion New York Giants oversized team photo featuring
Christy Mathewson;

• A 1925 Colored World Series Kansas City vs. Hillsdale panoramic
photo;

• A circa 1909 “Reach Sporting Goods” metal advertising
sign;

• A circa 1909 Honus Wagner bronze statue – from Wagner’s
estate;

• A 1910s “Ty Cobb Shoes” advertising sign;

• A 1920s Babe Ruth “Sporting News” die-cut advertising
sign.

“Everyone recognizes the fact that Bill Mastro has been a major force in the hobby for decades, and it’s universally acknowledged that his contributions have been significant,” said Doug Allen, president, Legendary Auctions.

“Quality items in pristine condition always attract considerable attention at auction,” said Allen. “Bill’s collection has always been one of the most meticulous in terms of condition and attention to detail. Collectors will pay a premium for items in exemplary grades of preservation such as this. The collection’s across-the-board, unparalleled quality truly makes every item one-of-a-kind.”

Buffalo blazebusters responded to an active fire Monday and found heavy smoke billowing from a second floor apartment.  They hustled upstairs and ran into three to five-foot high piles of baseball cards, magazines and other items blocking their path.

Finally plowing through the mess, they found Paul Moskaluk unconscious and lying in his bed.   In the midst of the chaos, firemen restored his vital signs and trekked back out of the smoky abode.

The Buffalo News offers more details on a rather unusual rescue of one lucky dude.

Four times each year, the southern California-based sports memorabilia auction company will create a new catalog through its Own it Now program with items available for straight sale.

The consignor sets a selling price with a first-come, first-served opportunity available to buyers for two weeks.  At the beginning of the third week, Memory Lane will invite potential buyers to contact their office and make an offer on any unsold items.  Owners of the consigned items will then opt to accept or reject the offer.

The new program is aimed at taking any risk out of the equation for sellers who may prefer not to place items into an auction format where items are sold wherever bidding ends.  It will also present potential buyers with a decision: pull the trigger and buy now or wait to get a better deal, hoping another collector doesn’t decide to grab the item in the meantime.

“It’s an alternative way for people with unique items to offer them at a level where they’re comfortable,” said Memory Lane’s J.P.Cohen.  “They can receive exposure through the Own it Now listing and if they get the price they’re looking for, they can sell immediately.”

Sellers will pay a 20% premium for sales made under the Own it Now program.  Buyers pay nothing over and above the price of the item plus shipping costs.

Memory Lane anticipates that between 100 and 200 items will be available in its first Own it Now catalog, set to be released early this fall.

The Own it Now program will not replace Memory Lane’s quarterly auctions, but rather supplement them. In essence, the company will now offer top quality items on a regular basis rather than just four times per year.  For now, only high-end, rare or superior quality sports cards and sports memorabilia will be accepted into the program.

Among the items already consigned for sale are a high grade Babe Ruth autographed baseball, complete, high-grade vintage sports cards and sets, a 1927 New York Yankees photo and other rare photographs.

“Our company has dedicated itself to being in the forefront of this marketplace,” said Cohen.  “And we believe this is a great opportunity to get buyers and sellers together on really unique items.”

Memory Lane is still accepting consignments for the inaugural Own it Now event. To learn more about the program, visit MemoryLaneInc.com or call 877-606-5263.  Current customers will receive the catalog automatically.

Although the 2010 Topps football card issue hasn’t been quite as anticipated as the company’s annual baseball issue, there is little doubt that Topps understands the importance of the product to their overall football line.  The baseball cards were a hit this year and Topps stuck with the formula for football.

Each box gives you 360 cards and a number of smaller and larger elements inside packs that offer good value.  The “big” things include the Short Printed Rookies, the chance for some really cool and expensive autographs out of a base product and the lottery aspect of the Gridiron Giveaway of vintage Topps football cards that one in every six packs reveals.

Topps’ loyalists got a scare last year when it was announced the company wouldn’t be getting a football card license for the first time since the mid-1950s.  Fortunately, things changed and the long-running line is continuing.

Each box of 2010 Topps football consists of 36 packs with 10 cards per pack and one autograph or relic card in each box. In addition, each pack is supposed to contain at least one rookie card.

As we prepared this review, the current price of these boxes online are ranging from $40-50 while my local card store (Triple Play Cards in Plano, TX reported strong sales at $54.95). One of the customers at Triple Play reported receiving 60 rookie cards out of his box.

One thing collectors have noticed immediately is that the design is very similar to the design of the baseball base brand and many of the aspects from that brand are included in the football product.

So, how did we do in our box?

Base Set: 268/440 and the Drew Brees 44DB card. In addition, we counted 63 Rookie Cards out of our box; however, no Short Printed Rookies.

Gold Parallel (#d to 2010): Nathaniel Allen, Dezmon Briscoe, Jimmy Clausen, Brandon Ghee, Jerome Murphy, Joe Webb, Major Wright

Black Parallel (#d to 55): Cadillac Williams

Gridiron Lineage: Troy Aikman/Tony Romo, Jim Brown/Adrian Peterson; John Elway/Tim Tebow; Dan Marino/Drew Brees; Joe Montana/Jimmy Clausen; Randy Moss/Dez Bryant; Thurman Thomas/C.J. Spiller; Ladanian Tomlinson/Ryan Mathews; Patrick Willis/Rolando McClain

Attax Code Cards: Jared Allen, Oshiomogho Atogwe, Miles Austin, Tom Brady, Larry Fitzgerald, Dwight Freeney, Frank Gore (2 of these cards); David Harris, DeSean Jackson, Steven Jackson, Andre Johnson, Maurice Jones-Drew, Ray Lewis, Peyton Manning, Brandon Marshall, Jerod Mayo, Rashard Mendenhall (2 of these cards), Julius Peppers, Troy Polamalu, Ed Reed, Darrelle Revis, Ray Rice, Philip Rivers, Asante Samuel, Matt Schaub, Michael Turner, Brian Urlacher, Jonathan Vilma, DeMarcus Ware, Reggie Wayne (2 of these cards), D.J. Wlliams, Patrick Willis,Adrian Wilson

1952 Bowman: Arrelious Benn, Sam Bradford, Drew Brees, Larry Fitzgerald, Maurice Jones-Drew, Colt McCoy, Ray Rice, Aaron Rodgers, Golden Tate,Tim Tebow, Beanie Wells, DeAngelo Williams

Anniversary Reprints: Tom Brady, Stephen Jackson, Chris Johnson, Randy Moss

75th Draft Anniversary: Brett Favre, Jimmy Clausen, Percy Harvin, DeSean Jackson, Steven Jackson, Ray Lewis

Peak Performance: Joseph Addai, Dallas Clark, Eric Dickerson, Brett Favre, Joe Flacco, Calvin Johnson, Peyton Manning, Ray Rice. Sidney Rice

Peak Performance Relic: Chris Cooley

Gridiron Giveaway (Similar to the Topps Million Card Contest in Baseball): We pulled six contest cards which ended up being revealed on the Gridiron Giveaway website as: 1973 Fred Cox, 1975 Dennis Partee, 1976 Rich McGeorge, 1979 Benny Ricardo, 1995, Greg Davis and 2007 Travis Taylor.  No huge hit there, but each code offers a little bit of mystery.

In the end, we did get our relic from the box and a massive amount of rookies. The best part of getting that many rookies is that are usually one or two who break out big later on and putting those cards away helps to guarantee not only the current value of a box but the future value of the box and the contents.

Rich Klein can be reached at Sabrgeek@aol.com

Sal Argo (right) and Brent Celek/ MySpace

Sal Argo was about to hold a paid autograph session with Philadelphia Eagles players in early June when it was abruptly shut down by the team.  Security personnel accompanying the players learned of a raid by NFL licensing agents and decided not to allow the players to participate.

Agents confiscated 457 jerseys and 818 unlicensed photos from The Sports Scene, located in a mall near Hazleton, PA.  511 unlicensed photos and more jerseys were confiscated from Argo’s van.

Charges were filed two days later and Argo was arraigned June 14.  He’s been free on his own recognizance.

Dozens  of fans were turned away from the signing session and Argo told local media he refunded thousands of dollars to those who had paid in advance.

Argo has maintained that the counterfeit jerseys and photos were sent to him by dealers and collectors across the country who wanted autographs.  He also maintains other locations in the area are selling counterfeit sports memorabilia but haven’t been charged.

“It smears my name and everything I stand for,” he said.  “Just because I had players there that’s why I was targeted.”

Argo is a regular at major sports memorabilia shows and has numerous photos of signing sessions and photo ops with past and present sports stars posted on The Sports Scene’s MySpace page.

This is Argo’s second run-in with the law over the sale of unlicensed products.  In 2001, he was charged with similar offenses, pleaded guilty and received two years probation.

A story in the Times-Leader has more details and says his attorneys are working on a plea deal.

The T207 baseball card set has driven collectors batty for years.

It was created in 1912 during the baseball season by  American Tobacco, makers of the T205 and T206 sets.   However, the T207 set was not as popular as its big brothers.  Sadly, the T207 was the very last tobacco created by this company because the Sherman anti-trust act resulted in the company’s separation. Nowadays, this set is more difficult to come by when compared to both the T205 set and the T206 set.

There are 13 Hall of Famers in the T207 series and  200 players that make up the set.   The set’s lack of respect could stem from the absence of some of the star players from this period.  Christy Mathewson, Ty Cobb,  Eddie Collins, Rube Waddell and Joe Jackson are missing from this set–not to mention Honus Wagner, who made his famous cameo in T206 and then disappeared from tobacco sets.

Still, despite the absence of these stars, collectors have plenty to chase.  Walter Johnson, Tris Speaker, John McGraw, Smokey Joe Wood, Joe Tinker, Latin star Rafael Almeida and Black Sox Eddie Cicotte and Buck Weaver are  all present in the T207 set.

On each card you will find the biography of each player printed on the back, a nice touch that was probably appreciated in 1912–and still is today. However, the cards in the T207 set are not as appealing as the boldly colored cards in the T205 or T206 sets. The cards are almost eerie in nature, with a foreboding feel present on some.  Featuring beige-colored borders, T207 cards have a brown background. The player’s last name, team and league is printed in block letters at the bottom.   Condition is often a problem.  Like all tobacco cards, their smaller size has created wear and a coating on the front often brings out whatever wear has developed over the years.

This set also has its share of scarcities.  The cards came with eight different back variations. Cards distributed with Red Cross Tobacco are virtually impossible to find, with last week’s find of eight new cards bringing the known number of those variations to just 13.  Those with  Broadleaf and Cycle tobacco advertising on the backs are also rare.

Recruit Little Cigars and Napoleon advertising backs are most common.  A non-rare card with a common back in VG condition can be found for less than $50.

Scarce commons will run six times higher and more–when you can find them.  There are several common cards that are very difficult to locate. This could be due to the fact that the T207 cards were released at two separate times.  Early in the baseball season a large number of the cards were  released, but not all of them . It wasn’t until approximately two months later that the remaining cards were sent out in those packs of tobacco products and the second release wasn’t as widely distributed the first.

It is usually very easy to identify where the cards were manufactured simply because the information is usually found printed on the back of each card. However, there are cards that have been created without a tobacco brand advertised on them. These cards are known as Anonymous Backs and can be found in Virginia and Louisiana where they were manufactured.

The cards that belong to the Broadleaf-Cycle category are not only very scarce but, are also great rarities. These very scarce and rare cards are often very highly priced because of how difficult they are to find. Irving Lewis, Ward, Miller, Nelson, Pelty, Peters and Ragan are a few of these rarities. Based on the description provided on the cards, some of the players were issued later in the season and are considered some of collecting’s first ‘high numbers’.

The front variations are very recognizable in this series.  For example, Ray Fisher’s card shows him with a white cap or a blue cap. There are three varieties that are evident on the Paddy Livingston card.

On his shirt, there is a small ’C’ insignia (for Cleveland) which is not a difficult variation at all. This is the more popular variation on the card. However, more difficult on the card is the larger ’C’ and the larger ’A’, which represented his time with the Philadelphia Athletics.   A group of all three  sold in the 2010 Robert Edward Auctions’ catalog event for over $1500.

A very tough card to locate in the T207 set is the Irving Lewis card.  It was created in two forms, which is either with the emblem on the sleeve or without it. The card that does not have the emblem on the sleeve is the more difficult card of the two to locate however, because the  Lewis card is such a challenge to find, collectors are content with having anyone that they are able to acquire.

The T207 set is not nearly as popular as T205 and T206 issues from a similar era, but it is still of great value and by all accounts, far more scarce than its predecessors.

Resurrecting the famous T206 brand has given Topps another outlet in its ongoing efforts to honor the long history of baseball cards.  It’s generally been a well-received product.

The 2010 Topps T206 boxes hit the streets in late August, offering a mix of respect for the original tobacco cards and some of the bells and whistles that are needed to push today’s brands.

Topps includes original T206-themed  “mini” cards in every pack.  They’re designed much like the original T206 cards in terms of look and size. There are back variations, which mirror the scarcity of the various tobacco brands that issued original T206 cards from 1909-1911.

To me, the most striking card in the box I opened was the Johnny Bench which utilized the same photo or a very similar photo to the one used on his 1969 Topps card.

T206 boxes contain 20 packs with nine cards per pack with the promise of   two autographs and/or relics in each box.

Like its Allen & Ginter product, T206 includes some historic or non-sports related cards.

The market value of these boxes as of now is $70-90.   My local card store (Triple Cards in Plano,TX) reported selling about 40 boxes at $80-90.  The reports from customers provided similar results to the box we opened and at least one of the 40 boxes provided a Strasburg autograph redemption.

There are single print cards in the product and here’s another quirk:  Topps used images of players without their caps for this set.  However, the company recently announced a list of  cards that were printed with caps on, which adds a unique element but tends to drive master set collectors crazy.

There are a lot of inserts in each box, which is nice but also makes putting together even a base set somewhat of a challenge.

Here’s what we pulled in our 2010 Topps T206 box:

Base Set: 135/300 with no duplicates

SP’s: Wade Davis, Jason Heyward, Tim Lincecum, Evan Longoria, Carlos Zambrano

Bronze (One per pack):  Bobby Abreu, Rick Ankiel, Erick Aybar, Robinson Cano, John Danks, Gavin Floyd, Kosuke Fukudome, Yovani Gallardo, Josh Hamilton, Luke Hochevar, Orlando Hudson, Conor Jackson, Derek Jeter, Hiroki Kuroda, Kazuo Matsui, Joel Pineiro, Adam Wainright, Kevin Youkilis

Mini American Caramel: Vladimir Guerrero, Felix Hernandez, Derek Jeter, Martin Prado, Carlos Zambrano

Mini Cycle Back: (#d to 55) Mark Teixeira

Mini Old Mill Back: Erick Aybar

Mini Piedmont Back: Chone Figgins, Dustin Pedroia, Brian Roberts, Frank Robinson, Cy Young, Ryan Zimmerman

Mini Polar Bear Back: Brad Hawpe, Jair Jurrjens

Historical Events (Mini Sized): 1st Subway Car, William H Taft, Joan of Arc honored, British Miners Strike, 1st Movie Stunt

American Caramel Autograph: Kurt Suzuki

Mini Framed Autographs: Everth Cabrera

We did get what was promised in the box and the mix of nostalgia and today’s technology was well done. Now, the only question will be will the 2010 T206 product be popular enough keep this brand going?

Rich Klein can be reached at Sabrgeek@aol.com

There are over 8,000 2010 Topps T206 listings on eBay

Long before the days of Hockey Night in Canada, Gretzky and Crosby, Gerry Downs was a kid, sneaking out of bed to listen to games on the radio.

His love affair with the game continues today.  He’s also a life-long collector.

Downs’ first card was one his mom sent away for–a 1935 Quaker Oats Syl Apps.  He still has it–along with hundreds of photos, pucks and just about anything elese you can think of.

He’s sold off some things–and given others away–but his basement is still his hockey man cave.

He talked with the Ottawa Sun about his collection and an autograph show encounter with one player he’d just as soon forget.