Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. to swindle.

1900		Garnett Jrnl (KS) 23 Feb. 6/4: The Republican plea [...] has been a delusion, a sham, a false pretence [...] devised for the purpose of goldbricking the laboring classes of the country out of their vote.
1906		S. Ford Shorty McCabe 121: I didn’t think you could gold-brick Pinckney as easy as that.
1908		N.Y. World 2 Aug. in Fleming Unforgettable Season (1981) 150: I shall strive to show New Yorkers they were not ‘gold-bricked’ when they got me.
1914		C.T. Jackson Fountain of Youth 14: Yes, sir, they goldbricked poor old Ponce when he put up there.
1929		W.C. Handy ‘Wall Street Blues’ 🎵 I’ve been gold-bricked, I’ve got the Wall Street Blues.
1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 87: Gold Brick. – To defraud or represent falsely.

2. to shirk, to loaf, to act lazily, thus goldbricker, a shirker.

1926		(con. 1918) L. Nason Chevrons 39: I was [...] thinking you were somewhere in hospital goldbricking your time away.
1927		H. Yenne ‘Prison Lingo’ in AS II:6 281: Gold-brick — To feign illness or any excuse to avoid doing assigned work.
1939		‘Citadel Gloss.’ in AS XIV:1 Feb. 27/2: gold-brick, v.i. 1. To feign illness in order to avoid work. 2. To stall for time when a quiz is announced. 3. To attempt to avoid any of life’s unpleasantnesses (common in military usage).
1944		A. Metal letter 16 Mar. in Dear Folks (2000) 142: I goldbricked, however, doing very little scrubbing.
1944		N. Mailer letter 30 Apr. in Selected Letters (2014) 17: Then there is the goldbricker — the fellow who avoids all work, or when he is caught, tries to get the softest job.
1944		New Yorker 7 Oct. 14/3: You’re not sick, Burrows, you’re gold-bricking [DA].
1945		in T. Shibutani Derelicts of Company K (1978) 124: How can those dumb bastards tell if a guy’s really sick or if he’s goldbricking.
1957		‘Weldon Hill’ Onionhead (1958) 85: ‘Nobody loafs during work watch [...] Catch me letting you fellows goldbrick off around here and I’ll...’.
1963		in T.I. Rubin Sweet Daddy 61: He’s always thinking guys are goldbricking. Hates them for it.
1966		‘Tom Pendleton’ Iron Orchard (1967) 55: They’d figure you couldn’t take it and were gold-brickin’.
1980		J.L. Gwaltney Drylongso 286: They said I was goldbricking because I didn’t want to get out there in the cold.
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 175: goldbrick. as a verb, to loaf.