MASTERCLASS: UNCLE SCROOGE’S MONEY BIN

UNCLE SCROOGE’S MONEY BIN

This bold model, based on Donald Duck comics, hides a wealth of detail and character

Words: Tim Johnson Photography: Andrew Tipping and Jacob Westerlund

You can’t miss Jacob Westerlund’s model; being a one-metre high grey cube with a huge yellow dollar sign emblazoned on the side, it really stands out at events. The Bricks team first saw it at Skærbæk Fan Weekend in 2015 and then in Halmstad, Sweden, in 2016, and it seems to be quite a simple build at first sight. Closer inspection proves this is not so; the model contains multiple floors and a vast vault full of golden coins. Welcome to the Money Bin: a twelve-storey skyscraper owned by Uncle Scrooge to store his “three cubic acres” of money. We caught up with Jacob to discover the secrets hidden within.

Jacob, I think I remember the Money Bin from the opening credits of DuckTales, the 1980s animated series - is that correct?

That version is different. This one is from the comics, in particular the ones drawn by Don Rosa. He worked on the comics from the late 1980s to the end of the 2000s but he based all of his drawings on those of Carl Barks, who drew the Money Bin in many different ways to suit the stories. A definitive version of the Money Bin design doesn’t really exist.

Why did you choose to build something from a Donald Duck print comic?

Donald Duck is very big in Scandinavia. He always has been. We have a lot of the magazines, they come out every week. It’s funny because Don Rosa is American but he’s not as well known there. So for a lot of his comics, although he writes them in English, when they subsequently get published, they get translated into Swedish. So a lot of his comics he has never seen published in his own language, possibly only in another language.

What is it about Donald Duck comics that fascinates you?

To me, Uncle Scrooge is the interesting character. Donald Duck is short-tempered but kind, he’s not that complicated, but Uncle Scrooge has this enormous wealth that he made by himself and yet he doesn’t really appreciate money. On a deeper level, he appreciates the ways to make money. I like all Donald Duck comics.

Donald says money doesn’t buy happiness. Scrooge says it does buy LEGO, which is the same thing

MASTERCLASS

MASTERCLASS

Money, money everywhere and not a drop to drink. Scrooge’s sea of money

Floors can be slid out of the Bin for closer inspection

However, the Don Rosa ones are something special. Also, Don is a collector himself, he has one of the largest collections of comic books in the world!

Do you think Don Rosa’s habit of collecting comes into his work about the Money Bin?

Yes, he does comics about collecting, the value of stuff, the absurdity of buying stuff and then storing it because it’s going to be worth more. There’s a comic where Donald Duck, instead of getting ordinary payments, gets to choose which coins from the Money Bin he wants to take as payment. He chooses really rare coins, but does it so much that the coins get devalued because the only reason they were rare in the first place was because Uncle Scrooge owned them all.

Apart from your love of the comics, why did you choose to build this particular model?

I like to build models

based on something that exists: a picture or drawings for example. Don Rosa did a comic where the Beagle Boys got their hands on the blueprints to the Money Bin, so Don Rosa actually drew up the plans. This was perfect for me because all the plans are laid out with dimensions and all the rooms are labelled – the mail room, the toilet, and so on. But the scale of my model is large enough that I could use my imagination to construct specific details. For example, on the plans in the basement there is the Main Generator, the Extra Generator, the Reserve Extra Generator and the Extra Reserve Extra Generator... For these, I decided to build a big generator, a smaller generator, a couple of car batteries that are linked and finally I decided to put a pushbike in there, that is just connected to a small generator!

Were there technical challenges building this model?

To have the balance between it looking good, being stable and not costing a fortune, I decided to build the main frames with 2x4 bricks, so it is two studs thick. I didn’t want to break up the pattern of the 2x4 bricks on the exterior, as it is a very clean look. Then I decided to build the floors sideways using SNOT technique because it would be too expensive to make it with plates and tiles. I also wanted to be able to slide out each floor and have to rest of the floors remain stationary. So I needed all of the floors to slide into the walls, like a chest of drawers. It’s hard to make them stable, yet at the same time, still be able to pull them out to display without stuff falling off.

Did you have any problems when exhibiting it for the first time?

When I built it at home, I had it on the floor. It worked well to see the insides through the hatch on the roof but then

when I got to Skærbæk and placed it on a display table, it was impossible to look down into it, so I had to create a hole in the wall around the back! But it turned out quite well because the hole is down at the same level as the money.

It’s a very stark model, being essentially a giant cube. How have you addressed this?

To make the whole display a bit more interesting, I also built some small scenes around the Bin as well. Like, on one side, the Beagle Boys have blown a hole in the wall and you can see how the money is pouring out.

What sort of responses have you received from the public?

I have had many smiles and laughs when they first see it and recognise it. Then even more when they walk around it and look inside and can see Uncle Scrooge sitting in his sea of money. One of the visitors we had at an exhibition in Stockholm was the president of the Swedish Donald Duck society and he was pleased with the model.

What’s next for you, Jacob?

With a second child on its way, there is not that much time for building for the moment but I am working on a model of the Moomin House. It’s not going to be quite as big though!

“The president of the Swedish Donald Duck society was pleased with the model”

Follow Jacob on Flickr at: flic.kr/ps/2DY5VB

The Bin is protected by many security devices, like the large cannon

The Precious Gem Cribs sit a floor above the Billion Bins