It is said that the Golden Age of Comic Books was from 1938 to 1956. As a child in the early 50s, I was an avid reader.
As I recall, comic books sold for about 10 cents a copy, which was no small sum in those days. It was a week’s allowance for me, and I often blew the whole she-bang to read the adventures of Superman, Batman, Captain Marvel, Captain America, the hero stories of World War II and all the great cartoon characters. Sometimes, kids on our street swapped comic books after we had memorized each line from our old ones.
When I was about 7, I begged for a comic book subscription to Donald Duck – my favorite Disney Character. Annual subscriptions were a buck for 12 issues. Today, an ordinary letter costs almost a dollar to mail, while postage for first class mail in those days was 2 cents and I think bulk mailings were cheaper yet.
But when Donald and friends showed up in our mailbox, I ripped the plastic cover away and read and reread each story. I read about Donald and Daisy, Pluto, and Donald’s nephews – Huey, Dewey and Louie. I also enjoyed reading about Donald’s eccentric and money loving uncle – Scrooge McDuck.
Uncle Scrooge, as he was called, was the richest duck in the world. He was introduced to the comic world in 1947, supposedly from Scotland. As the comic years passed by, Scrooge became increasingly obsessed with his wealth. He was shrewd businessman and lived in a mansion known as McDuck Manor, which had an indoor pool where Scrooge stored all his gold coins. He was obviously on the Gold Standard as we all were back then. In each issue, he went for “swims” among all his gold coins.
Who knew back then that those 10 cent comic books would fuel a multi-million-dollar industry devoted to collecting? We usually just tossed our old comics after we had read them dozens of times. Perhaps if had saved and preserved all my old copies, I would have a money bin like Uncle Scrooge. It would be fun to dive into a pool of gold.