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Thank you for the pointer. Yes, I had looked in the OED before I sent my 
query. 
 
There, the earliest example of 'good' used in the singular as a reference 
to a commodity ["Now only as a countable noun, chiefly pl., but occas. in 
sing.) Saleable commodities, merchandise, wares (now chiefly applied to 
manufactured articles)"] dates from 1936: "1936 Q. Jrnl. Econ. May 436 All 
that follows will hold true of any storable good, like cotton, wool, 
rubber, ..." 
 
All earlier examples given in the OED represent plural usage (e.g. 1879, 
"The plaintiff did not complain of the goods having been sized, but of the 
mode in which they had been sized" and 1842, "I mean by a domestic 
manufacturer, a man who makes his goods in his own house or shop.") and 
those examples do not appear to establish that at the respective times, 
anyone would have used the word 'good' for an individual commodity or 
article, as opposed to 'goods' for a collection of those. 
 
As common as it is now to talk about the price of a good, or the market for 
a good, that was not always the case. I know this usage began some time 
before 1936 (e.g. it is in Hicks and Allen, 1934). But when? 
 
Torsten Schmidt 
 
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