The color of money in scrooge's money bin

HorizonHse@aol.com HorizonHse at aol.com
Thu Jan 17 10:24:58 CET 2002


Hi, all.

It always seemed to me that Duckburg was in Southern California, somewhere 
near Burbank where the Disney Studio has been since 1940. Barks makes this 
pretty clean in several stories, such as "In Old California," "7 Cities of 
Cibola" and "Land Beneath the Ground."

The American in Scrooge's money bin is silver. In 1933, the United States 
government made it illegal for American citizens to possess more than a few 
gold coins as collectors. All the rest had to be surrendered to the 
government. Surely Scrooge would have complied with this requirement. Because 
Barks had no control over the colors used in his comic books, it's impossible 
to say whether he had gold or silver coins in mind. 

What's in the money bin now? Who knows. There were times when Scrooge 
converted the contents of the money bin into currency only and at least one 
time when he converted everything he owned into silver dollars ("The Money 
Champ"). After the He couldn't have converted the silver dollars into gold 
coins after the contest because they were illegal in the U. S. to own.

If you accept Barks stories as canon and everything else as non-canon, then 
everything else is fiction, tall tales and mythology. Those stories can say 
anything they want, mixing truth with fiction, much like the Sherlock Holmes 
stories not written by Doyle or the Oz stories not written by Baum (although 
the Oz stories written by Thompson are considered to be canon as well).

Barks actually included a lot of detail about Scrooge's life. According to 
one Barks' one page story (U. S. #12), Scrooge was 75 in 1956. That means he 
was born in 1881, which would make him 121 years old this year. Why not? If a 
duck can live 75 years, why not 121 years? In another story, Scrooge weighs 
himself and finds out his weight is 25 pounds. Do ducks ever weigh that much?

Some Barksian facts seem to contradict other facts. For example, Scrooge 
claims to have gone to Duckburg's Webfoot University, but its not possible; 
neither school nor Duckburg  existed when he says he attended it. Clearly 
some tall tale spinning on his part.

There's been some chat on the site about who's related to whom. How can 
Grandma Duck be Scrooge's grandmother, Donald's grandmother, Daisy's 
grandmother and the nephew's grandmother. I haven't a clue how that ever 
could be possible. I always thought everyone called her Grandma out of 
respect and affection, whether she was actually their grandmother or not. I 
can't remember anyone in any story calling her Ma Duck or Mrs. Duck or using 
her first name -- does she have one?

If you really want to worry about continuity and consistency, how do Superman 
and Superboy, his younger self, both exist in the same time? The Smallville 
stories and the Metropolis stories have always been set in the present. Very 
off topic, but a question I always wanted to ask.

More on topic, sort of:  Why do you always see so few ducks in Duckburg? 

Regards,

William Price
236 West Portal
San Francisco




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