pangea797 wrote:I don't think Barks expected that people would be disecting his stories fifty years later and be concerned with chronological inconsistencies. I think he just gave us a general idea of Scrooge's history. Barks showed the dime to be 1899 so that's what it is. If another author wants to use a different date that's fine too.
If another author decides to change one of the few "facts" Barks has given, then the result not compatible with Barks anymore. If Barks says the first dime is from 1899, then why should it be changed to 1875?
http://www.duckmania.de/images/60poster02.jpgpangea797 wrote:I don't think we should assume that Scrooge earned other kinds of coins in Scotland prior to getting the dime. The dime is not meant to be the first dime that he earned, rather it is the first money he earned. It just happened to be a dime. At least that's how I've always looked at it. As long as we're pointing out inconsistencies, the 1899 dime in the story appears to have an eagle on the side with the date. However, in 1899 the side with the date actually had Liberty's head on it.
The dime could be a rare dime having an eagle on the side with the date 1899. This would make the dime even more special for Scrooge. He's fond of money. There are some Barks stories about the value of misprinted coins and stamps. In that light, the dime isn't just only valuable in being Scrooge's first earned dime, but also very valuable in plain cash.
Robb_K wrote:If that 1899 US dime was the FIRST money Scrooge ever earned, he reached adulthood and traveled across the Atlantic Ocean and had several adventures BEFORE he earned any money!!!! OR (as, apparantly MUST be the case, that 1899 coin was MIS-STRUCK (a mistake in the mint). Apparantly, it should have read: 1879. Barks' own words were :"The first DIME I ever earned". I assume that if he had meant "The first coin I ever earned" or "The first money i ever earned", he would have phrased it THAT way. If that isn't true, then the time line of events in The Ducks' parallel World is not the same as in our World, or Scrooge earned only bartered returns until he was a youthful adult in the Klondike Gold Rush.
The dime could be the first money he earned in the sense of making his first profit. In 'North of the Yukon' (US 59), Soapy Slick. in Goldboom, Alaska, says: "Here it is - the I.O.U he gave me in 1898!" (4.3) According to this story Scrooge had a debt in 1898. He "loaned money [...] for a grubstake" (2.
.
http://coa.inducks.org/coa/c1/story.php/0/W+US+++59-01So, apparently, despite any earlier travels, Scrooge had to borrow money as late as 1898. In that respect, the year 1899 for Scrooge's "the first DIME I ever owned" in 'Billions in the Hole' (US 33) could mean that the dime is the first dime Scrooge owned for himself, after getting out of debts.
http://coa.inducks.org/s.php/x/W+US+++33-02'The Invisible Intruder' (US 44) is, according to an Inducks, a story written by Vic Lockman. It shows a "duckling" Scrooge with glasses, shining shoes ("Shine 5c", 1.2). After Scrooge's begins using suspenders, the story the price goes down with a cent ("Shine 4c", 1.4). This art-only story tells how "Uncle Scrooge's first production line was born" (1.4), by "mass mechanization" (1.3), and "how he grew bigger" (2.1), using "suspenders" (2.2).
The price of 5 dollarcents says nothing about a dime that Barks himself has already mentioned in his own self-created stories before.
http://coa.inducks.org/coa/c1/story.php/0/W+US+++44-04According to an unidentified interview, of apparently 1994, Barks has said about art-only stories:
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10. Did I write and draw all of those stories alone?
Not all of the stories. There are perhaps twenty stories, more or less, that I developed from suggestions that I bought from friends or which were sent to me by the editors. I do not consider stories that I drew from scripts sent to me by the editors as my work, although I often revised the scripts extensively. The office gave me great freedom to create story subjects and to invent characters, and they never complained when I rehashed one of their other writer's scripts.
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http://bb.mcdrake.nl/engdisney/viewtopic.php?p=2050#p2050If Barks says don't he don't consider art-only stories as his work, "although I often revised the scripts extensively", then the 'The Invisible Intruder' is non-existant fantasy-fantasy, or at least still much less of any importance in comparison to a Barks-story like 'Billions in the Hole'.
Why would an author make two exceptions in a Scrooge life-story, changing a date (from 1899 to 1875) and using a story written by Lockman? Or even three exceptions, when rejecting the looks of "duckling" Scrooge. Why leave out the glasses and the HDL-like cap, if the looks of a Barks-drawn duckling Scrooge could be the only significance of this art-only story?
How believable does that make the change of the date 1899 for Scrooge's eagle dime, if there's no line in what it counted and what is changed at will?
Egg would like to figure out a Scrooge life-story by using clear rules in how to count "facts" given by Barks. One rule could be that one needs to have to very good explanation when trying to reject or change Barks "facts". If Barks mentions 1899 for a eagle dime as being the first dime Scrooge owned, then why not? What could be a counter-proof?