Real 'Goldbergs' mom puts the real Murray's chair on the block

"It is bittersweet," Adam F. Goldberg, the Jenkintown-centric show's creator, says of his mother's decision to sell off the furniture (and suit of armor) that he and his brothers have no room for.

Jeff Garlin and Wendi McLendon-Covey in a scene from “The Goldbergs,” where Murray’s chair isn’t quite as nice as the one owned by the late Dr. Murray Goldberg, and that is now up for auctionRead moreRon Batzdorff/ABC

by Ellen Gray

Published March 16, 2018, 5:00 a.m. ET

Attention, fans of The Goldbergs: The real Beverly is downsizing, and at least one now-famous seat is on the auction block.

The model for the "smother" played by Wendi McLendon-Covey on the ABC sitcom has listed a wide array of items — including a 7-foot-tall suit of armor and a leather chair that belonged to her late husband, Murray — with Maple Glen's Locati Auctions under the heading, "The Real Beverly Goldberg is Downsizing Sale."

As her Jenkintown-raised son, Adam F. Goldberg, explained in a phone interview Thursday afternoon, "She's been trying to give us these things for two decades now. But [he and his two brothers, Eric and Barry] don't physically have room for these things. No one does."

Until now, "it's been in storage, it's been crammed into rooms, where you can't walk. This is her legacy, these are her heirlooms, and her children have outright rejected them …. We don't have room for a golden red-velvet couch," he said. "She decided that instead of schlepping these things from house to house when she moves, she's going to get rid of them."

And though he's been teasing her on Twitter, posting a picture, for instance, of himself and his late father side by side in matching wing chairs (his considerably smaller), and predicting she'll "immediately cave due to the mom guilt," Goldberg agreed the sale idea was a healthy one.

"There are some real legitimate gems in there. I have photos of myself as a kid near all of these pieces of furniture, and it is bittersweet," particularly since his father's old leather chair is up for sale, something that she's "offered to us so many times."

Another, earlier chair of his father's already has a place on the Culver City, Calif., set of The Goldbergs, and that's "the one from all the videos," Goldberg said. "In the early '90s, he upgraded to this cushy leather one, which carried him all the way through. And that's the chair that he loved. The chair she's selling is the chair he loved the most. But it's not the chair from my childhood."

Whatever happens with the online auction, which ends March 26, her son plans to repurpose it for the show, predicting on Twitter that it will be an episode for next season.

"My mom @goldilocks405 will immediately regret selling these items and try to buy them back," he wrote. "The woman can't part with a lopsided clay ashtray I made when I was 5 … let alone our dining room table!"