P. Goldsmith's Sons Co.

[mikesglove]

Philip Goldsmith was an Austrian immigrant to the United States in 1861. In 1869 He and his wife moved to Covington KY., just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati, OH. In Covington he opened the city’s first 25-cent store. He bought toy dolls from Wolf Fletcher, owner of a small manufacturing and repair shop in Covington. In 1875 Goldsmith closed his business and became partners with Fletcher in his manufacturing operation. During slack times after Christmas Fletcher was in the habit of hand making baseballs from left over materials to make ends meet. They patented a baseball winding machine in 1876 and began to expand their sporting goods business.

The recent photo below is a restored building at 714 Madison St. in Covington, KY., one time home of the Fletcher/Goldsmith business circa 1875.


Some toy dolls from their business.




Their partnership ended in 1878 with each starting their own competing businesses just blocks apart. Goldsmith continued to make toy dolls, baseballs and other athletic goods and became highly successful. His business went through a few name changes and locations in Covington, but were known as P.Goldsmith & Co. by 1890. Philip’s sons, Oscar and Alfred became partners in the business in 1893 and a year later Philip met an untimely death by drowning . The sons carried on with the sporting goods side of the business and eliminated the toy doll manufacturing. Alfred soon sold his partnership interest to another brother, Edgar. Their youngest brother, Hugo became a partner in 1906. The business name was changed to P. Goldsmith's Sons Co. and they moved to a larger facility across the river in Cincinnati.

A period brochure showing the new Goldsmith building in Cincinnati.


Here is the actual building located at John & Findlay Sts. taken from Google Maps. Pretty cool! There is a company name on the brick in faded white paint.



Between the top and bottom windows one can just make out "Goldsmith". The name on the whole length of the building appears to be a very faded "P.Goldsmith's Sons Co." There is a faded logo above the "Goldsmith". Hard to make out. There is a better one on the other side of the building.


The logo is pretty clear on this side, an old "MacGregor"


Hugo turned out to be a manufacturing genius over the years with many patents to his credit. He stabilized a notoriously seasonal industry by carrying 700 different sports products for every season and sport He increased employee efficiency by establishing incentive programs. In the throes of the Great Depression, he bought out two struggling sporting goods companies, Draper Maynard and Crawford, McGregor & Canby Co. which became MacGregor Golf Co.

The old building on John & Findlay Sts. became too small with MacGregor's new products coming on board so another move was made to a massive building at 4861 Spring Grove Ave. The building is now the Cincy Self Storage and is up for sale.



Through all this his businesses thrived. The last of the original founders, Hugo Goldsmith died in 1952 leaving the company to a nephew. Lacking Hugo Goldsmith’s passion and leadership, the company was sold to Brunswick in 1958.


There are so many great Goldsmith gloves out there that it is hard to chose, so I just went for a variety of different cloth patches.

[vintagebrett]

Great write up Mike. If one was inclined, putting together a collection of gloves with a different Goldsmith patches would be fun. Neat to see the factory is still standing and has the logos on the walls. I thin I've mentioned it before, but William Sonnett worked for P. Goldsmith before starting Ohio Kentucky company.

[mikesglove]

I remember you mentioning William Sonnett and I did run into a couple of references to him at P. Goldsmith. From all accounts Goldsmith attracted talented people because he was an enlightened employer. There was quite a bit of information on Goldsmith Sporting Goods because of their longevity and status as one of the Big Four athletic goods manufacturers. I thought it would be interesting to find little known stuff like the toy doll business in Covington, KY and finding the old factory was a stroke of luck. The lots adjacent to that building were all empty from tear-downs. After Hugo Goldsmith died in 1952, his nephew, Phil Goldsmith took over the reins. Phil had health problems and no sons and none of the other top Goldsmith executives had sons either, so there was really no legacy. With that in mind, the Brunswick offer in 1958 was too good to pass up.

[softball66]

Next to Nocona probably my favorite glove outfit. Hugo had it right and after he died and Brunswick took over the company, veteran employees departed, it was never the same and I really disliked those over-laced Macs of the 1970s. What were they thinking? I do admire Goldsmith signing all of the great black players and
putting their endorsements on its gloves. I'll take that outfield of Frank Robinson, Willie Mays and Hank Aaron and you truly won't find a better trio. Tally up the
homers by this trio.
Funny, the other day I noted that Dizzy Dean, when he came out of the St.Louis broadcast booth to pitch his last swansong outing for the Browns, used a Mac Goldsmith Pete Reiser model.
Thanks Mike and Brett for filling in some of the Goldsmith blanks.

[theglovester]

Well hello lucy!!! SOOO... a JCL Reiser is a DD Glove fill in til one surfaces.....Hot DANG!! Thanks Joe, Oh and Joe "The Package has left Tennessee" look for it late next week. I love the maltese cross tags on the early Goldsmiths, Classy!! your right Joe on the web lacing of the Brunswick Macg. a waste of good lace and I guess their effort to compensate for lesser quality with fancy lace.. Reminds me of my single years and the wrong women I dated
Seriously I have kinda swung to S&D and The Goldsmith gloves, really cool stuff. Thanks for the pics and history guys, a bunch better topic!!!

[Thxforthebp]

Great research. That was a fantastic writeup about my brand of choice! It always struck me as odd how Goldsmith never had a patch on their gloves from the 30s up until when they rebranded MacGregor Goldsmith, all of a sudden the great looking patches reappear.

[mikesglove]

here is a rare variation of the Goldsmith red and white cloth patch. Only one I've seen. The mitt itself is black with a dark olive green sewn-on glove section. Super cool mitt from the teens-twenties. I don't know of another company that had such a wide variety of patches in such a short time span. Hugo Goldsmith may have thought it was a way of keeping his company brand fresh. I would have loved to have all the variations of patches but that is something I needed to start a long time ago. I have no idea why they eliminated the patches for much of the 1930-40's. The iron cross logo is a very antique design. He may have wanted to modernize the brand so eliminating the patch would make sense. Goldsmith did come back full force with some super MacG cloth patches in the late 40's-50's and they too are among my favorites.

[mikesglove]

Below is a notice of a receivership auction of D&M merchandise in 1937 before Goldsmith took ownership. Representatives of Horace Partridge attended the auction and apparently purchased a substantial amount of D&M equipment to resell.

[Jerry J]

That was some great info!!!! It is awesome that your share this with us Mike. There is so much history in this nation that never gets out to people and I am so thankful that you pass this on.

[vintagebrett]

Here are some pictures from a large promotional booklet regarding the MacGregor Goldsmith company. There are lots of fascinating photos inside the book - I'll post more over the next few weeks.

[mikesglove]

Below is a Reliance Brand Mitt distributed by H. Niedecken Co. of Milwaukee, Wisconsin. It was made by Goldsmith and features the 1908 patented web lacing. The front of the mitt is also stamped with the 1905 patent date for a means of adjusting padding at the heel of the mitt. It sure is a beauty. Not many early Goldsmith crescent pad mitts out there.