Goodwin Goldfadden RIP

[Wite3]

Just heard from George V. that Goodie passed away on Sunday at 97. A true hobby pioneer. He will be missed.

Joshua

[barrysloate]

Goodie may have been in this hobby longer than almost anybody. He did live a long life. Sorry to hear the news.

[BobbyVCP]

Went to ADCO almost every Saturday morning to buy cards when I was about 11-14....great memories.

[Leon]

It's always sad to hear of our pioneer collectors and dealers passing away. RIP Goodie....

[ocjack]

RIP Goodie.

Used to visit his shop in the 60's. Place looked like a small tornado had hit it. But ask him for a 1905 Joe Schlotnik and he would go into the back and come out with a handful of them in about 30 seconds. He did have a bad habit of fanning a group of cards in his hand and flipping through them to find the number you needed. Even then, I used to cringe when he did that.

Another part of our history gone.

[ethicsprof]

very sad news.
my condolences and deepest sympathy to family and friends.

barry

[Rickyy]

Wow a hobby pioneer for sure. I remember ordering from him as a kid back in the 70's and that's when he was already a long long long timer in the hobby and business. My condolences to the family. RIP Goodie!

Ricky Y

[toppcat]

Wow, he must have been the last link to that entire generation of initial collectors and researchers. RIP.

[dacubfan]

Here is a link to his obit in the LA times. I can't even begin to imagine what material passed through that man's hands over his long career.

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/latimes/obituary.aspx?n=goodwin-goldfaden&pid=155319225

[rebelsart]

Goodwin was a hobby pioneer that I remember from back in the late 1960's. We went to his book store and purchased 1955 Topps baseball cards! I wasn't into the T206's then.
About 10 years ago I communicated with him and we talked about his cards that had all been sold long ago. But he still had thousands and thousands of sports books, magazines, yearbooks, programs, etc.
Goodwin told me that one day he sold one customer 15,000 T206 cards. I still cannot imagine that.

Sports Illustrated did an article about him back in 1971. The article even mentioned his cigarette cards (Polar bear, Cycle, etc.). Here is a link to that article:

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1085327/index.htm

A true hobby pioneer and great person too.
Rest in Peace.
Art Martineau

[ValKehl]

I just purchased a small lot of Washington Senators (often referred to as the Nationals or Nats) yearbooks solely to obtain the very tough 1949 yearbook, the last one I needed to complete my run. As I flipped through the pages, I came across Goldfaden's stamp on the last page before the back cover. This reminded me of his passing and the Net54 threads that followed. Wish I had been fortunate enough to meet him.
Val

[kevinlenane]

Apparently you could have bought his store in 1971 for 100k. Goudey Ruth's were $5.00 wonder how many were in stock back then?

http://www.si.com/vault/1971/09/27/612784/adco-the-ultimate-sports-nostalgia-trip-can-be-all-yours-for-a-mere-100000

[Paul S]

Well, at least as well a kid in his mid-teens could. In fact, He had a rep for being gruff with youth - as several other members here might express - but not me. This was back in the 60's.

He was medium short with coke-bottle glasses and a wardrobe that must have been at least 20-years old. My mom used to drive me over there from the San Fernando Valley. T206 Cobbs were $5 a pop:eek: and within the course of a year. I had 3/4 of them (lacked the Green). Also got a Red Hindu Duffy - card backs were not really in all that fashion then so it couldn't have been more than $2-3. Just a few years ago it was highest graded (SGC) of any of the other TPGs, and sold at auction (Hi Scott and Leon). In fact, if any members here have won a pre-war vint card from either B&L (now just B) or LOTG or our own BST up until a few years ago, it likely originally came from him to me to you.

About his store and errata: The ariticle referenced mentions him moving to Sherman Oaks. He did and it turned out he was a 2-minute bike ride (Schwinn Sting Ray w/sissy bar:)) from my own house:):cool: I spent a summer hanging out in his and Esthers kitchen sorting cards and drinking lemonade. He would pull out box after box of cards for me to sort, all post-war vint. One day, I pulled a 52T Mick out of a cigar box of otherwise 66T commons. Even then that was my Holy Grail (I was born in NY), but, you know, around $40 was too much for me then (<-- kicks self in A$$). I wrote about this a few years back on the postwar vint forum, but I stink at searches.

Fast forward: When I was 21, and I moved to San Francisco. One day I received a letter from him. He had called my Mom to see how I was doing. In that letter, he told me that he had sold the store mentioned in the article (article was written in 1971 but I am talking 1974), that he had sold his total book inventory to the Univ. of Notre Dame, which at that point gave them the largest sports publication library anywhere. He didn't mention the price, as the article suggests - 100k, so I don't know what it eventually went for.

[bcornell]

Paul, your post about the '52 Mantle is here: http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=183243

'goldfaden site:net54baseball.com' as a Google search found it

[Griffins]

I used to go to Adco a lot as a kid, being gruff to kids was an understatement, I'll just leave it at that. But his wife, Esther, was incredibly nice.

[paleocards]

Anthony and I must've grown-up in LA around the same time, because I remember my Mom driving me down Santa Monica to Adco to pick-out a few '56 Topps commons when I was around 13-14 years old (back in 1971, '72).