DCML Digest Issue 57

[Don Rosa]

> From: Olaf Solstrand <olaf at andebyonline.com>
>I don't think this coin  is so special
> only because it's the first dime of the richest duck in the
> world. I think it's enough that its original owner IS a man as wealthy as
Scrooge...
> Regardless of  if anyone's richer. A coin that is cuddled with so much, by
the
> richest or  almost richest man in the world...

That's correct -- and the Dime has power in Magica' spell because it happens
to be his oldest coin which he's held the most for the longest time, not
*because* it was his "first" coin regardless of how much he's subsequently
handled it. If $crooge had earned a penny before that Dime, spent the penny
on more shoe polish, then earned the Dime second, the Dime would still be
just as powerful to Magica since it was the Dime he kept and loved for so
long.

> I
> don't think the coin NOTICES that Scrooge is no longer the
> richest duck in the
> world, because it has a new owner. I think that the value of the
> coin comes
> from how much money Scrooge has when he loses the coin, not in
> the exact moment it is melted.

Huh? Now you've changed your theory to something incorrect. The coin doesn't
"know" anything... it's just a coin. And it doesn't matter exactly how
wealthy $crooge is at any later point when the coin is in or out of his
possession... just that he *was* once very (!) wealthy. Even if he went
broke, that coin would still have been handled a great deal by him when he
was super-rich... it would still be just as powerful and useful to Magica.
In other words, the bit in my "Treasury of Croesus" story about the Dime
proving something about whether Croesus or $crooge was richest was only a
red herring. I needed a catchy ending.