The Money Bin

The building where Scrooge stores his personal money. It contains three cubic acres of cash, and Scrooge's favorite pastime is to dive through [the money] like a porpoise, and burrow through it like a gopher, and toss it up and let it hit me on the head.

Origin

(Note: All stories mentioned in this article are by Carl Barks unless stated otherwise.)

The Money Bin first appeared in The Pixilated Parrott, and its correct name was first used in WDC 135. Before then it was called the safe or the vault. One story (WDC 126), however, showed Scrooge storing his money in a corn crib!

Is it Scrooge's home?

Generally, the Bin is the only place where Scrooge is shown to reside in Barks' stories. A few early stories, such as Christmas of Bear Mountain (Scrooge's first appearance), and some other pre-Money Bin stories which are vague on this point, refer to the huge mansion of Scrooge McDuck, but this idea was abandoned as Scrooge's character developed in a different direction. In Egmont stories, Scrooge lives in a fancy mansion and goes to the Money Bin only as a place of recreation, an idea also used in the DuckTales TV show. According to Don Rosa's Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck part 12, Scrooge did have a mansion at the time of Bear Mountain, but sold it immediately after that story and returned to the Money Bin.

Its age, size and appearance

In most comics stories, the Money Bin is shown as a cubic-shaped building with a dollar sign on the side. (This provides for a gag in The Second-Richest Duck, when Scrooge sees that Flintheart Glomgold's Money Bin looks the same, except that its side has a pound sign.) In DuckTales, the Bin's sides are concave and it has a red dome on the top.

The sources on the age and location of the Money Bin are constantly contradictory. In WDC 135 it is referred to as Uncle Scrooge's new Money Bin and is on top of Killmotor Hill, which is protected by a mine field and other safeguards. In Migrating Millions Scrooge mentions that the Bin has been on this hill for 70 years (i.e., since 1886!), ever since Duckburg was only a fort on the Tulebug River. Then, in The Money Well, it is revealed that the Bin is on the very site of Old Fort Duckburg, a pioneer stronghold during the Indian wars. Other stories, however, show it on flat land, and often in the middle of a big city street! An obscure story written but not drawn by Barks offers a solution to this mystery. In this story, Duckmade Disaster, Scrooge moves his Money Bin off the alleged site of Duckburg founder Cornelius Coot's homestead, having already moved it only last year off the site of Old Fort Duckburg!

In Don Rosa's stories, Sir Francis Drake built Fort Drakeborough (later Fort Duckburg) on Killmule Hill (later Killmotor Hill) in the 16th century. In 1899, Scrooge bought the deed to Killmule from a Yukon prospector, Casey Coot (Cornelius' grandson), and built the Money Bin there in 1902 after the decrepit fort was razed. Stories on this subject are Last Sled to Dawson, His Majesty McDuck, and Life of Scrooge, part 10.

[By Jonathan Markoff.]

Find the names in other languages for: Money Bin

Last updated February 16, 1999.

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