Tell your stories Of dealings with legends of the hobby

[Chris-Counts]

I'm going to start with the first hobby legend I met, which was Goodwin Goldfadden, in about 1973. I found an ad somewhere with the address of his Adco Sports Book Exchange in Hollywood, and I convinced my father to drive my brother and I there one Saturday. When we arrived, we discovered the shop was so small that all three of us could barely fit inside. Cards and memorabilia were literally oozing out of every nook and cranny of the musty joint. Goodwin, meanwhile, appeared to have little patience with a pair of pre-teens filled with endless questions about cards. It soon became clear that we had better make a quick purchase before he threw us out. So I asked if we could see some 1957 Topps cards, which I had recently discovered and were just about the oldest cards I had ever seen. No doubt his store was filled with tobacco and early gum cards, but there was no way we were going to see them. We were thrilled, though, that he let us sort through a box of 57s.

It was like digging for gold. My brother and I each grabbed a small stack at about a dime a card. I remember grabbing all the Dodgers I could afford because I was simply amazed to see a card of a BROOKLYN Dodger. My brother and I each handed our stacks to Goodwin so he could tell us how much we owed him. I'll never forget the image of him thumbing through those cards with a look of disgust on his face. As he rifled through the cards, he would from time to time slam each stack against the nearest flat surface, like it was some kind of nervous habit, and in the process, he would ding a bunch of corners (I observed this habit in later transactions as well). Even as a clueless 12-year-old, I was horrified by the way he treated his cards with what seemed like contempt. My dad took the whole thing in stride and handed over a couple dollars for the cards. We thanked him and left, and on the way home my dad stopped nearby and bought us each an Orange Julius. Looking back on it, I realized that the trip to Goody's was my introduction to the business of vintage cards ...