STEVE GOLD
Grown-ups would walk into Steve Gold's store and become kids again.
With case upon case of old baseball cards and other sports memorabilia, the store, called Au Sports, 'might be one of the biggest card shops that's ever been,' said Ryan Friedman of the newsletter Auction Report. 'Cards going back to the early 20th century -- the '20s, the '30s, the '40s. I remember begging my parents to drive us over there. You could spend hours upon days and still not see everything there.'
Mr. Gold, 52, died Thursday at Resurrection Hospital of complications from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma, family members said.
His family opened their first store in 1980 at Dempster and McCormick in Skokie. In 1989, they expanded to 4,500 square feet when they moved a couple of miles west, to 5129 Dempster, also in Skokie. Mr. Gold's current store, about 4,600 square feet, is at 5629 W. Touhy in Niles. It boasts a 4 million-card inventory and also sells jerseys, posters and other memorabilia from football, basketball and other sports.
When he was around 13, Mr. Gold took a box of his old baseball cards and magazines to a convention and made $300 selling them.
' 'Hey, this is a nice way to make extra money,' ' he recalled, in a 2002 interview, was his mother Audre's reaction.
He and his brother Bruce began buying cards from their friends and from dealers. In time, their collection grew too big for their house, and his mother and father, the late Sun-Times sportswriter Eddie Gold, opened their first store. Ten years later, in 1990, Mr. Gold took over the operation.
The store's name was a play on the Gold family name. In chemistry, 'Au' is the symbol for gold on the periodic table of elements.
Mr. Gold grew up near Peterson Park, at Peterson and Pulaski, and attended Peterson Elementary School. An Eagle Scout, Mr. Gold would later help other Boy Scouts get their merit badges for collecting.
His first job was shelving books at the Albany Park Library, an experience he said helped him organize the store.
Still, the back room retained a rambling sort of feel.
'You'd probably be invited to go into the back room and sort through it to find your own personal treasure,' said his wife, Mary Ellen.
The longtime sweethearts met at Von Steuben High School. They would have been married 27 years this month.
The shop became a clubhouse for sports fans.
'People would just come in and stay for hours,' Bruce Gold said.
Sports stars did autograph sessions at the store. Sometimes, they'd drop by just to shoot the breeze, too.
Once, Hall of Fame first baseman Johnny Mize came in and reminisced about how hard it was for ballplayers to travel by train and bus, in the days before airline travel was common.
Another time, Bruce Gold said, 'I remember Billy Williams came into the shop. We're showing him Billy Williams baseball cards.'
NFL referee Jerry Markbreit, a longtime Skokie resident, stopped in once and was disappointed to see the price of one of his old books. 'Yeah, I'm only a dollar,' he said.
Other big-name visitors included George Blanda, Jose Cardenal, Ray Meyer, Stan Mikita, William 'Moose' Skowron and Norm Van Lier.
Instead of getting cards from manufacturers, Mr. Gold liked to buy them from the collectors who loved them, so he could hear their stories, his brother said: 'They'd say, 'These were my cards from my childhood.' '
'You could look at a person and know how old their cards were because most people collect between 8 and 12 years old,' Bruce Gold said.
People came in as customers and became friends. When times were bad, Mr. Gold was generous, his brother said. 'A lot of times, where somebody was a customer for many years and they would lose their job, you're not going to give them the off-the-street price,' Bruce Gold said.
Away from work, Mr. Gold loved TV's 'Lost.' His wife and his daughter Rebecca were delighted that he lived to see the series' ending last spring.
He enjoyed the Superdawg drive-in and getting ribs from the Gale Street Inn. And he played the candy man in a production of 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory' for the Night Players theater group at St. Tarcissus Church, his wife said.
Funeral services are at 10 a.m. today at Piser Chapel, 9200 N. Skokie Blvd., Skokie. He will be buried in his Au Sports polo shirt.
Photo: Steve Gold and his wife would have been married 27 years this month.
Obituary of Steve Gold
