In one old story, Scrooge and Donald have a competition to see whether Scrooge’s money can help him climb a mountain (“Old Demon Tooth”, shaped kind of like a straight banana with one end in the ground) faster than Donald’s youthful energy. At first Scrooge invests in costly elixirs of youth and such, but soon realises that there might be a more literal interpretation of “money” here. When Donald finally arrives at the top, he’s stunned to find Scrooge already there, watching TV and sipping a cool drink. Scrooge reminds him that the contest was to see whether Scrooge’s money could get him to the top faster, and shows the flabbergasted Donald a staircase of money that he’s built to the top of the mountain.
The last I heard, Carl Barks (author and illustrator of the greatest of Uncle Scrooge stories from the 1940s through the early 70s) was still alive, well over 90.
I believe that there are fatal flaws in steps 3 and 4. In the pictures I’ve seen, the vault contained many gold coins and jewelry. And the bills were almost certainly not all $1 bills.
Here is an artist’s rendition (by the great Carl Barks) of Scrooge’s vault:
If you look through the old Carl Barks stories (as well as the newer imitations) you find that Scrooge McDuck’s actual fortune isn’t given the same value in any two stories. They never did explain what a “fantasticatillion” was, but I’m betting it’s a lot bigger than a trillion.
And how the heck DO ou swim through a pile of coins and bills, anyway?
Bosda, several times Scrooge is said to have 99 cubic feet of money. The problem with that is that the depth guage in the money bin usually showed 98 or 99 feet depth, so there seems to be some internal inconsistency. And you forgot:
(7) Adjust for inflation and fifty years of investment return on capital.
Arnold says, << In the pictures I’ve seen, the vault contained many gold coins and jewelry. >> Those are the later paintings that Barks did. In the older comics, the money was mostly silver coins (although there could have been silver dollars amongst them), with a bill here and there. One of the jokes was that Scrooge would stop in the midst of a multimillion dollar deal to pick up a nickle on the street, and he still had his first dime. In the later paintings, the coins were gold coloured, to reflect inflation, I guess, but still maintain the glorious picture of a binful of money.
Cal asks: <<And how the heck DO you swim through a pile of coins and bills, anyway?>>
Glad you asked. It’s the punchline of a story (“Only a Poor Old Man”) where the Beagle Boys (the Terrible Beagle Boys!) had stolen Scrooge’s money. He lamented that he couldn’t swim in it any more. They said, “Huh?” and he showed them how he used to dive in it like a porpoise, and burrow through it like a gopher, and toss it up and let it hit him on the head. The Beagle Boys say, “That looks like fun!” and they dive head first into the pile of coins … and are knocked out cold.
As the B Boys are being led off to jail, Huey, Dewey, Louie and Donald ask Scrooge, “How DO you manage it?” and Scrooge says, “Well, there’s a trick to it.”
The after-school cartoon Duck Tales a few years ago repeatedly listed the volume of the Money Bin as three cubic acres of cash. Presumably, either this means that Duckburg is six dimensional, or they meant three acres[sup]3/2[/sup].
As to the actual amount, I could swear that I remember one episode where his accountant (you know, the secret identity of GizmoDuck) gave him a count, and Scrooge was outraged that it was too low, until the accountant noticed the nickel stuck on his forehead. Anyone else remember that episode, and the particular amount? If I recall correctly, the money was hidden at the bottom of a lake at the time.
The definitive source on Scrooge cDuck – after Carl Barks, of course – is “An Informal Biography of Scrooge McDuck”(Mirage Press,1974), by Jack L. Chalker (yup, the guy who wrote the “Well World” series). The book is definitive, because the people writing the Scrooge McDuck series crib from him, and have said so in print. Chalker quotes from the Barks canon, but doesn’t always tell you where he quotes from. Chalker says that Scrooge has THREE cubic acres of money (p. 16) and that it amounts to $500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.16, or 5 X 10 to the 27th power dollars and 16 cents (from Uncle Scrooge #4, apparently).
This is consideraby mr than a trillion dollars, and certainly far beyond Gates’ wildest dreams. Or so one would hope.
My apologies for relying on memory. Yes, indeed, 3 cubic acres of money. I was right on the depth gauge registering 98 or 99 feet, though.
Of course, that’s just ready cash. Scrooge also owns diamond mines and oil wells and …
The 500,000…000.16 is one of the earliest references to a total. However, in 1955, Scrooge pegged his fortune at 250 umptillion fabulatillion dollars. About a year later, it was 5 billion quintuplatillion umptuplatillion multiplatillion impossibidillion fantasticatrillion. He seems to be rounding at this point.
