Photos of the Founding Collectors

[Leon]

Originally Posted by ocjack

I lived within walking distance of Goodwin's shop. Most times you needed to call ahead to let him know you were coming. The front part of the store was shelves and tables piled high with magazines, books, boxes of assorted cards, etc. If you asked for a little known player in an obscure set, he walked into the back room and come out with 10 of the cards you just asked about.

I too would cringe when he did the thumb-flip through a stack of cards in order to find one.

Goody may or may not have had the first card store. I just feel fortunate that, in retrospect, I had the opportunity to meet him and do some trades with him. He is part of the hobby's heritage.

I love to hear and research stories from the hobbies dawning. Thanks and thanks to the others for sharing stories.

[Paul S]

I also knew Goodwin (never had the guts to call him Goodie, like his wives (2, but serially ) . Yes, that store was floor-to-ceiling with books and periodicals of all sorts. In my teens I was already somewhat steeped in prewar...public library, imagine that! (Goodwin also had rented garages packed to the hilt in the surrounding neighborhood of his store). So I would ask for the more "known" players, but eventually he began to bring out others and talk to me a little bit about them. He cared nothing about tobacco backs (neither did I, then, jiust thought they looked "neat") and it ended up - decades later after I re-entered the hobby about a decade ago - that he had shoved upon me a really nice T206 Duffy Red Hindu; graded highest ever for any TPG and sold a few years back with B&L.

Now, eventually he moved his residence about a 2-minute bike ride from my own house in the San Fernando Valley! One summer (this is late Sixties) I spent about a month there sorting postwar (not vintage then)). At one point I came across The '52T Mick. I already it knew what they were going for (mid-upper $30s) and couldn't pull the trigger on it!

Later on in the Seventies when I had moved to SF he called my Mom and asked for my address. Was nice to get a letter from him. He was always a prolific correspondent due to his business. He reported that he had sold everything he had in his inventory to the University of Notre Dame which at that time gave them the largest sports library anywhere. Maybe still does. I don't know about the Library of Congress.

[topcat61]

This is good stuff! Thanks for sharing, there's nothing like getting a face with the name and learning how these men shaped our hobby. There are a few others I added to my list and there may be a few more that I've forgotten:

Wirt Gammon
Edward Golden
Howard "Slim" Leheup
Sam Rosen
Jake Wise

Thanks.

[trdcrdkid]

Originally Posted by topcat61

This is good stuff! Thanks for sharing, there's nothing like getting a face with the name and learning how these men shaped our hobby. There are a few others I added to my list and there may be a few more that I've forgotten:

Wirt Gammon
Edward Golden
Howard "Slim" Leheup
Sam Rosen
Jake Wise

Thanks.

Wirt Gammon's picture sometimes appeared above his column in The Ballcard Collector in the early '70s, if there was room. The only one I can find online from work is this one, but I can look at the originals when I get home tonight and see if I can find another one. I've posted a lot of Gammon's writings going back to 1945, but most of them don't have his picture. I've been meaning to do a post about him at some point.



I don't know that I have pictures of any of the others, but in this thread I posted Lionel Carter's obituaries of Howard Leheup and Jake Wise, plus an article by Jake Wise from The Ballcard Collector:

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=221758

And my post on card dealers of the 1950s had some stuff on Sam Rosen, including some of his price lists:

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthread.php?t=233137

I'll see if I can dig up pictures of any of these guys when I get home and have a few minutes.

[Fred]

What, no Mr. Mint photos? Sorry, nothing here to read... just keep moving on...

[topcat61]

Hehe, I snapped a photo and an autograph from Mr. Mint in November shortly before he got called up to the Field of Dreams.