PREV ARTICLE       NEXT ARTICLE       FULL ISSUE       PREV FULL ISSUE      

V4 2001 INDEX       E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 4, Number 25, June 17, 2001, Article 5 NUMISMATIC CARTOONS Dick Johnson writes: "To add one more item on numismatic themes in syndicated cartoons in last couple E-Sylums: While I was in the service I was stationed at one of the National Security Agency's spy locations near Washington DC (in1955). Civilians worked alongside military personnel. In my department was a deaf-mute civilian woman in about her forties. She had a friend's daughter (early twenties) visit her one week to see Washington. The sightseeing exhausted my coworker by Thursday. So she wanted me to take out her visitor Friday and Saturday for a couple nights on the town before returning to New York City Sunday. Since she knew I only made about a $100 a month serviceman's pay she offered to underwrite the entire cost of the weekend's entertainment. I did. The visitor didn't return to New York until the following Monday. However my coworker paid up. Later we exchanged letters and I guess I had told her I was a coin collector. One day, unexpectedly, I received a large flat package. She worked for King Features Syndicate in midtown Manhattan and had dug out of their archives the original art work of a Walt Disney Donald Duck 13-panel Sunday cartoon strip. It shows Donald wanting a hobby and he choose numismatics. The last panel shows Donald with a tin cup soliciting coins from pedestrians under a sign "I am a Numismatist, Please Help Me." It had run nationwide Sunday August 8, 1954. I was delighted, and exhibited it at an ANA convention in Chicago 1956. I had framed the art work and it has hung on my wall ever since. But that's not the end of the story. I know original cartoon art has become highly collectible, so I wanted it appraised. Before the Museum of Cartoon Art moved to Florida it was originally here in Connecticut. I called one day to ask a curator for a verbal estimate of its value. Later, my wife wanted to go to the Antiques Roadshow when it came to nearby Hartford. I took that Disney cartoon strip. She took a commemorative spoon (issued by Farran Zerbe for the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair with a Thomas Jefferson one dollar gold coin inset in the bowl). The Antiques Roadshow appraisers undervalued both: they appraised the Disney cartoon a tenth of the curator's estimate. But the commemorative spoon with inset with a gold dollar they appraised at $35 where the coin alone is worth ... Well, draw your own conclusions about Antiques Roadshow appraisals."

Wayne Homren, Editor

	coinbooks.org Web

The Numismatic Bibliomania Society is a non-profit organization 
promoting numismatic literature. See our web site at coinbooks.org.

To submit items for publication in The E-Sylum, write to the Editor 
at this address: whomren@coinlibrary.com

To subscribe go to: https://my.binhost.com/lists/listinfo/esylum