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

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