Gump's -- a San Francisco store that from 1861 to 1975 meant exclusive exotic luxury. Richard Gump was president from 1947 to 1975 when he sold the store in order to settle the Gump estate. The store was then sold five more times until in 2005 it was bought by a private investment firm.
The only object in the present Gump's from the original store is a large gilded Buddha from the Qing Dynasty. As in the original store,the Buddha is the only item in the store not for sale.

The full and fascinating history of Gump's is in Gump's Treasure Trade (1949, recently reprinted) and in Gump's since 1861: a San Francisco Legend(1991).

Richard Gump was a handsome, wealthy, talented bachelor. He was the quintessential man-about-town, appearing frequently in the local papers with beautiful women on his arm. He was also a widely acknowledged expert on jade and on what constituted 'good taste'. His two books, Jade, Stone of Heaven (1962) and Good Taste Costs No More (1951) still make informative reading, particularly the one on jade.

In 1946, Petrie Wine was looking for a summer replacement for its successful radio show "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" with Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce (this was the last time that Rathbone took the role of Holmes). The writers, Anthony Boucher (who wrote the plot synopsis) and Denis Green (who wrote the final script) came up with "The Casebook of Gregory Hood", which starred a handsome, wealthy and talented man-about-town who ran an import/export firm dealing in exclusive exotic objects while solving mysteries and pursuing beautiful women for 30 minutes once a week. Based on private correspondence, Richard Gump was their direct model. Gump was also referenced on the show a few times as a client of Hood Importers.

There are 15 surviving radio shows available from any old-time radio dealer. And the scripts are available from Crippen & Landau (2009) in The Casebook of Gregory Hood, edited by Joe Christopher (who kindly references me in a footnote or two).
All of which then says, therefore what?
The Gump story is of great interest by itself. For me it goes further, as I have my mentalist-detective, John Randall Brown, living at 13 August Alley with Gump overtones; and in the second of the Steele Mackaye Investigations novellas put out by Stark Raving Group (the first will be released at Bouchercon)a client of the firm is Gregory Hood who reminiscences about Gump and his father. Gump stuff will be back in the third Steele Mackaye story, "The Eleventh Curse", as there is a Gump Ocean Research Station on the island of Mo'orea, a former 34 acre estate which Richard Gump gave to UC Berkeley. The Gump research has just been great fun. Please join in.