Donald Fauntleroy Duck or Donald Duck
Donald's two dominant personality traits are his short temper and his positive outlook on life. Many Donald shorts start with Donald in a happy mood, without a care in the world until something comes along and spoils his day. His anger is a great cause of suffering in his life. On multiple occasions, it has caused him to get in over his head and lose competitions. There are times when he fights to keep his temper, and he sometimes succeeds in doing so temporarily, but he always returns to his normal angry self in the end.
Donald's aggressive nature has its advantages, however. While it at times it is a hindrance, and even a handicap, it has also helped him in times of need. When faced with a threat of some kind, for example Pete's attempts to intimidate him, he is initially scared, but his fear is replaced by anger. As a result, instead of running away, he fights—with ghosts, sharks, mountain goats, giant kites, and even the forces of nature. And, more often than not, when he fights, he comes out on top.
Donald is something of a prankster, and as a result, he can sometimes come across as a bit of a bully, especially in the way he sometimes treats his nephews and Chip 'n' Dale. As the animator Fred Spencer has put it:
The Duck gets a big kick out of imposing on other people or annoying them, but he immediately loses his temper when the tables are turned. In other words, he can dish it out, but he can't take it.[9]
However, with a few exceptions, there is seldom any malice in Donald's pranks. He almost never intends to hurt anyone, and whenever his pranks go too far, he is always very regretful. In Truant Officer Donald, for example, when he is tricked into believing he has accidentally killed Huey, Dewey and Louie, he shows great remorse, blaming himself. His nephews appear in the form of angels, and he willingly endures a kick by one of the them---that is, of course, until he realizes he has been played for a sap, whereupon he promptly loses his temper.
Donald is also a bit of a show-off. He likes to brag, especially about how skilled he is at something. He does in fact have many skills—he is something of a Jack of all Trades. Amongst other things, he is a good fisher and a good hockey player. However, his love of bragging often leads him to overestimate his abilities, so that when he sets out to make good on his boasts, he gets in over his head, usually to hilarious effect.
Another of his personality traits is tenacity. Even though he can at times be lazy, and likes to say that his favorite place to be is in a hammock, once he has committed to accomplishing something he goes for it 100 percent, sometimes resorting to extreme measures to reach his goal.
Donald's two dominant personality traits are his short temper and his positive outlook on life. Many Donald shorts start with Donald in a happy mood, without a care in the world until something comes along and spoils his day. His anger is a great cause of suffering in his life. On multiple occasions, it has caused him to get in over his head and lose competitions. There are times when he fights to keep his temper, and he sometimes succeeds in doing so temporarily, but he always returns to his normal angry self in the end.
Donald's aggressive nature has its advantages, however. While it at times it is a hindrance, and even a handicap, it has also helped him in times of need. When faced with a threat of some kind, for example Pete's attempts to intimidate him, he is initially scared, but his fear is replaced by anger. As a result, instead of running away, he fights—with ghosts, sharks, mountain goats, giant kites, and even the forces of nature. And, more often than not, when he fights, he comes out on top.
Donald is something of a prankster, and as a result, he can sometimes come across as a bit of a bully, especially in the way he sometimes treats his nephews and Chip 'n' Dale. As the animator Fred Spencer has put it:
The Duck gets a big kick out of imposing on other people or annoying them, but he immediately loses his temper when the tables are turned. In other words, he can dish it out, but he can't take it.[9]
However, with a few exceptions, there is seldom any malice in Donald's pranks. He almost never intends to hurt anyone, and whenever his pranks go too far, he is always very regretful. In Truant Officer Donald, for example, when he is tricked into believing he has accidentally killed Huey, Dewey and Louie, he shows great remorse, blaming himself. His nephews appear in the form of angels, and he willingly endures a kick by one of the them---that is, of course, until he realizes he has been played for a sap, whereupon he promptly loses his temper.
Donald is also a bit of a show-off. He likes to brag, especially about how skilled he is at something. He does in fact have many skills—he is something of a Jack of all Trades. Amongst other things, he is a good fisher and a good hockey player. However, his love of bragging often leads him to overestimate his abilities, so that when he sets out to make good on his boasts, he gets in over his head, usually to hilarious effect.
Another of his personality traits is tenacity. Even though he can at times be lazy, and likes to say that his favorite place to be is in a hammock, once he has committed to accomplishing something he goes for it 100 percent, sometimes resorting to extreme measures to reach his goal.
Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge had worked his way up the financial ladder from humble immigrant roots. Firstly, he took up a job polishing and shining boots, and was enraged when a ditchdigger paid him with an 1875 US dime, which was useless as currency in 19th century Glasgow. However, the coin inspired him to take a position as cabin boy on a Clyde cattle ship to the United States to make his fortune at the age of 13. In 1898, after many adventures he finally ended up in Klondike. There he found a golden rock the size of a goose's egg. The next year he had made his first $1,000,000 and bought the deed for Killmule Hill from Casey Coot, the son of Clinton Coot and grandson of Cornelius Coot. He finally ended up in Duckburg in 1902. After some dramatic events where he faced both the Beagle Boys and president Roosevelt and his "Rough Riders" at the same time, he tore down the rest of the old fort Duckburg and raised his famous Money Bin at the same site. In the years to follow, Uncle Scrooge traveled all around the world in order to increase his fortune. During these and earlier travels he learned many different languages from all parts of the world. Meanwhile his family ran the Money Bin. When Scrooge finally returned to Duckburg, he found himself the richest duck in the world, rivaled only by Flintheart Glomgold, John D. Rockerduck and, less prominently, the maharaja of the fictional country Howdoyoustan (play onHindustan). He had however changed. His newly developed personality - one that was a mix of hostility and crankiness made his own family leave him. 12 years later, he closed his empire down, but eventually returned to a public life 5 years later and started his business.
He keeps a portion of his wealth, money he has personally earned himself, in a massive Money Bin overlooking the city of Duckburg. In the short Scrooge McDuck and Money, he remarks to his nephews that this money is "just petty cash". In the Dutch and Italian version he regularly forces Donald and his nephews to polish the coins one by one in order to pay off Donald's debts—Scrooge will not even pay them much for this lengthy, tedious, hand-breaking work. As far as he is concerned, even 5 cents an hour is too much expenditure.
A shrewd businessduck and noted tightwad, he is fond of diving into his money, burrowing through it, swimming laps in it, spitting out coins that enter his mouth like water during these swimming sessions, and tossing coins into the air mirthfully only to let them fall upon his head — all without injury. He is also the richest member of The Billionaires Club of Duckburg, a society which includes the most successful businessmen of the world and allows them to keep connections with each other. Glomgold and Rockerduck are also influential members of the Club. His most famous prized possession is his Number One Dime.
Value of Scrooge in Barks' The Second Richest Duck.
The sum of Scrooge's wealth is unclear. According to Barks' The Second Richest Duck as noted by a TIME article, Scrooge is worth one multiplujillion, nine obsquatumatillion, six hundred twenty-three dollars and sixty-two cents.[11] In the DuckTales episode "Liquid Assets", Fenton Crackshell (Scrooge's accountant) notes that McDuck's money bin contains 607 tillion 386 zillion 947 trillion 522 billion dollars and 36 cents. Don Rosa's Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck notes that Scrooge amounts to five multiplujillion, nine impossibidillion, seven fantasticatrillion dollars and sixteen cents. A thought bubble from Scrooge McDuck sitting in his car with his Chauffeur in Walt Disney's Christmas Parade No.1 (Published in 1949) that takes place in the story "Letter to Santa" clearly states "What's the use of having eleven octillion dollars if I don't make a big noise about it?" Forbes has occasionally tried to estimate McDuck's wealth in real terms; in 2007, Forbes estimated his wealth at $28.8 billion;[12] in 2011, it rose to $44.1 billion due to the rise in gold prices.[13] One website used the size of Scrooge's Money Bin as a basis and calculated that it could contain over $27 trillion. Barks himself has said that the fortune is five billion quintiplitilion unptuplatillion multuplatillion impossibidillion fantasticatrillion dollars. Whatever the amount, Scrooge never considers it to be enough; he believes that he has to continue to earn money by any means possible. A running gag is Scrooge always making profit on any business deal.
Scrooge never completed a formal education, as he left school at an early age. However, he has a sharp mind and is always ready to learn new skills. Because of his secondary occupation as a treasure hunter, Scrooge has become something of a scholar and an amateur archaeologist. Starting with Barks, several writers have explained how Scrooge becomes aware of the treasures he decides to pursue. This often involves periods of research consulting various written sources in search of passages that might lead him to a treasure. Often Scrooge decides to search for the possible truth behind old legends, or discovers obscure references to the activities of ancient conquerors, explorers and military leaders that he considers interesting enough to begin a new expedition.
As a result of his research, Scrooge has built up an extensive personal library, which includes many rare tomes. In Barks's and Rosa's stories, among the prized pieces of this library is an almost complete collection of Spanish and Dutch naval logs of the 16th and 17th centuries. Their references to the fates of other ships have often allowed Scrooge to locate sunken ships and recover their treasures from their watery graves. Mostly self-taught as he is, Scrooge is a firm believer in the saying "knowledge is power". Scrooge is also an accomplished linguist and entrepreneur, having learned to speak several different languages during his business trips around the world, selling fridges to eskimos, wind to windmill manufacturers in the Netherlands etc.
Both as a businessman and as a treasure hunter, Scrooge is noted for his drive to set new goals and face new challenges. As Carl Barks described his character, for Scrooge there is "always another rainbow". The phrase later provided the title for one of Barks's better-known paintings depicting Scrooge. Periods of inactivity between adventures and lack of serious challenges tend to be depressing for Scrooge after a while; some stories see these phases take a toll on his health. Scrooge's other motto is "Work smarter, not harder."
As a businessman, Scrooge often resorts to aggressive tactics and deception. He seems to have gained significant experience in manipulating people and events towards his own ends. As often seen in stories by writer Guido Martina and occasionally by others, Scrooge is noted for his cynicism, especially towards ideals of morality when it comes to business and the pursuit of set goals. This has been noted by some as not being part of Barks's original profile of the character, but has since come to be accepted as one valid interpretation of Scrooge's way of thinking.
Scrooge seems to have a personal code of honesty that offers him an amount of self-control. He can often be seen contemplating the next course of action, divided between adopting a ruthless pursuit of his current goal against those tactics he considers more honest. At times, he can sacrifice his goal in order to remain within the limits of this sense of honesty. Several fans of the character have come to consider these depictions as adding to the depth of his personality, because based on the decisions he takes Scrooge can be both the hero and the villain of his stories. This is one thing he has in common with his nephew Donald. Scrooge's sense of honesty also distinguishes him from his rivalFlintheart Glomgold, who places no such self-limitations. During the cartoon series DuckTales, at times he would be heard saying to Glomgold, "You're a cheater, and cheatersnever prosper!"
Scrooge has a nasty temper and rarely hesitates to use violence against those who provoke his ire (often his nephew Donald, but also bill and tax collectors as well as door-to-door salesmen); however, he seems to be against the use of lethal force. On occasion, he has even saved the lives of enemies who had threatened his own life but were in danger of losing their own. According to Scrooge's own explanation, this is to save himself from feelings of guilt over their deaths; he generally awaits no gratitude from them. Scrooge has also opined that only in fairy tales do bad people turn good, and that he is old enough to not believe in fairy tales. Scrooge believes in keeping his word—never breaking a promise once given. In Italian-produced stories of the 1950s to 1970s, however, particularly those written by Guido Martina, Scrooge often acts differently from in American or Danish comics productions.
Carl Barks gave Scrooge a definite set of ethics which were in tone with the time he was supposed to have made his fortune. The robber barons and industrialists of the 1890–1920s era were McDuck's competition as he earned his fortune. Scrooge proudly asserts "I made it by being tougher than the toughies and smarter than the smarties! And I made it square!" It is obvious that Barks's creation is averse to dishonesty in the pursuit of wealth. When Disney filmmakers first contemplated a Scrooge feature cartoon in the fifties, the animators had no understanding of the Scrooge McDuck character and merely envisioned Scrooge as a duck version of Ebenezer Scrooge—a very unsympathetic character. In the end they shelved the idea because a duck who gets all excited about money just was not funny enough.
In an interview, Barks summed up his beliefs about Scrooge and capitalism:
I've always looked at the ducks as caricatured human beings. In rereading the stories, I realized that I had gotten kind of deep in some of them: there was philosophy in there that I hadn't realized I was putting in. It was an added feature that went along with the stories. I think a lot of the philosophy in my stories is conservative—conservative in the sense that I feel our civilization peaked around 1910. Since then we've been going downhill. Much of the older culture had basic qualities that the new stuff we keep hatching can never match.
Look at the magnificent cathedrals and palaces that were built. Nobody can build that sort of thing nowadays. Also, I believe that we should preserve many old ideals and methods of working: honor, honesty, allowing other people to believe in their own ideas, not trying to force everyone into one form. The thing I have against the present political system is that it tries to make everybody exactly alike. We should have a million different patterns.
They say that wealthy people like the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers are sinful because they accumulated fortunes by exploiting the poor. I feel that everybody should be able to rise as high as they can or want to, provided they don't kill anybody or actually oppress other people on the way up. A little exploitation is something you come by in nature. We see it in the pecking order of animals—everybody has to be exploited or to exploit someone else to a certain extent. I don't resent those things.
Scrooge had worked his way up the financial ladder from humble immigrant roots. Firstly, he took up a job polishing and shining boots, and was enraged when a ditchdigger paid him with an 1875 US dime, which was useless as currency in 19th century Glasgow. However, the coin inspired him to take a position as cabin boy on a Clyde cattle ship to the United States to make his fortune at the age of 13. In 1898, after many adventures he finally ended up in Klondike. There he found a golden rock the size of a goose's egg. The next year he had made his first $1,000,000 and bought the deed for Killmule Hill from Casey Coot, the son of Clinton Coot and grandson of Cornelius Coot. He finally ended up in Duckburg in 1902. After some dramatic events where he faced both the Beagle Boys and president Roosevelt and his "Rough Riders" at the same time, he tore down the rest of the old fort Duckburg and raised his famous Money Bin at the same site. In the years to follow, Uncle Scrooge traveled all around the world in order to increase his fortune. During these and earlier travels he learned many different languages from all parts of the world. Meanwhile his family ran the Money Bin. When Scrooge finally returned to Duckburg, he found himself the richest duck in the world, rivaled only by Flintheart Glomgold, John D. Rockerduck and, less prominently, the maharaja of the fictional country Howdoyoustan (play onHindustan). He had however changed. His newly developed personality - one that was a mix of hostility and crankiness made his own family leave him. 12 years later, he closed his empire down, but eventually returned to a public life 5 years later and started his business.
He keeps a portion of his wealth, money he has personally earned himself, in a massive Money Bin overlooking the city of Duckburg. In the short Scrooge McDuck and Money, he remarks to his nephews that this money is "just petty cash". In the Dutch and Italian version he regularly forces Donald and his nephews to polish the coins one by one in order to pay off Donald's debts—Scrooge will not even pay them much for this lengthy, tedious, hand-breaking work. As far as he is concerned, even 5 cents an hour is too much expenditure.
A shrewd businessduck and noted tightwad, he is fond of diving into his money, burrowing through it, swimming laps in it, spitting out coins that enter his mouth like water during these swimming sessions, and tossing coins into the air mirthfully only to let them fall upon his head — all without injury. He is also the richest member of The Billionaires Club of Duckburg, a society which includes the most successful businessmen of the world and allows them to keep connections with each other. Glomgold and Rockerduck are also influential members of the Club. His most famous prized possession is his Number One Dime.
Value of Scrooge in Barks' The Second Richest Duck.
The sum of Scrooge's wealth is unclear. According to Barks' The Second Richest Duck as noted by a TIME article, Scrooge is worth one multiplujillion, nine obsquatumatillion, six hundred twenty-three dollars and sixty-two cents.[11] In the DuckTales episode "Liquid Assets", Fenton Crackshell (Scrooge's accountant) notes that McDuck's money bin contains 607 tillion 386 zillion 947 trillion 522 billion dollars and 36 cents. Don Rosa's Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck notes that Scrooge amounts to five multiplujillion, nine impossibidillion, seven fantasticatrillion dollars and sixteen cents. A thought bubble from Scrooge McDuck sitting in his car with his Chauffeur in Walt Disney's Christmas Parade No.1 (Published in 1949) that takes place in the story "Letter to Santa" clearly states "What's the use of having eleven octillion dollars if I don't make a big noise about it?" Forbes has occasionally tried to estimate McDuck's wealth in real terms; in 2007, Forbes estimated his wealth at $28.8 billion;[12] in 2011, it rose to $44.1 billion due to the rise in gold prices.[13] One website used the size of Scrooge's Money Bin as a basis and calculated that it could contain over $27 trillion. Barks himself has said that the fortune is five billion quintiplitilion unptuplatillion multuplatillion impossibidillion fantasticatrillion dollars. Whatever the amount, Scrooge never considers it to be enough; he believes that he has to continue to earn money by any means possible. A running gag is Scrooge always making profit on any business deal.
Scrooge never completed a formal education, as he left school at an early age. However, he has a sharp mind and is always ready to learn new skills. Because of his secondary occupation as a treasure hunter, Scrooge has become something of a scholar and an amateur archaeologist. Starting with Barks, several writers have explained how Scrooge becomes aware of the treasures he decides to pursue. This often involves periods of research consulting various written sources in search of passages that might lead him to a treasure. Often Scrooge decides to search for the possible truth behind old legends, or discovers obscure references to the activities of ancient conquerors, explorers and military leaders that he considers interesting enough to begin a new expedition.
As a result of his research, Scrooge has built up an extensive personal library, which includes many rare tomes. In Barks's and Rosa's stories, among the prized pieces of this library is an almost complete collection of Spanish and Dutch naval logs of the 16th and 17th centuries. Their references to the fates of other ships have often allowed Scrooge to locate sunken ships and recover their treasures from their watery graves. Mostly self-taught as he is, Scrooge is a firm believer in the saying "knowledge is power". Scrooge is also an accomplished linguist and entrepreneur, having learned to speak several different languages during his business trips around the world, selling fridges to eskimos, wind to windmill manufacturers in the Netherlands etc.
Both as a businessman and as a treasure hunter, Scrooge is noted for his drive to set new goals and face new challenges. As Carl Barks described his character, for Scrooge there is "always another rainbow". The phrase later provided the title for one of Barks's better-known paintings depicting Scrooge. Periods of inactivity between adventures and lack of serious challenges tend to be depressing for Scrooge after a while; some stories see these phases take a toll on his health. Scrooge's other motto is "Work smarter, not harder."
As a businessman, Scrooge often resorts to aggressive tactics and deception. He seems to have gained significant experience in manipulating people and events towards his own ends. As often seen in stories by writer Guido Martina and occasionally by others, Scrooge is noted for his cynicism, especially towards ideals of morality when it comes to business and the pursuit of set goals. This has been noted by some as not being part of Barks's original profile of the character, but has since come to be accepted as one valid interpretation of Scrooge's way of thinking.
Scrooge seems to have a personal code of honesty that offers him an amount of self-control. He can often be seen contemplating the next course of action, divided between adopting a ruthless pursuit of his current goal against those tactics he considers more honest. At times, he can sacrifice his goal in order to remain within the limits of this sense of honesty. Several fans of the character have come to consider these depictions as adding to the depth of his personality, because based on the decisions he takes Scrooge can be both the hero and the villain of his stories. This is one thing he has in common with his nephew Donald. Scrooge's sense of honesty also distinguishes him from his rivalFlintheart Glomgold, who places no such self-limitations. During the cartoon series DuckTales, at times he would be heard saying to Glomgold, "You're a cheater, and cheatersnever prosper!"
Scrooge has a nasty temper and rarely hesitates to use violence against those who provoke his ire (often his nephew Donald, but also bill and tax collectors as well as door-to-door salesmen); however, he seems to be against the use of lethal force. On occasion, he has even saved the lives of enemies who had threatened his own life but were in danger of losing their own. According to Scrooge's own explanation, this is to save himself from feelings of guilt over their deaths; he generally awaits no gratitude from them. Scrooge has also opined that only in fairy tales do bad people turn good, and that he is old enough to not believe in fairy tales. Scrooge believes in keeping his word—never breaking a promise once given. In Italian-produced stories of the 1950s to 1970s, however, particularly those written by Guido Martina, Scrooge often acts differently from in American or Danish comics productions.
Carl Barks gave Scrooge a definite set of ethics which were in tone with the time he was supposed to have made his fortune. The robber barons and industrialists of the 1890–1920s era were McDuck's competition as he earned his fortune. Scrooge proudly asserts "I made it by being tougher than the toughies and smarter than the smarties! And I made it square!" It is obvious that Barks's creation is averse to dishonesty in the pursuit of wealth. When Disney filmmakers first contemplated a Scrooge feature cartoon in the fifties, the animators had no understanding of the Scrooge McDuck character and merely envisioned Scrooge as a duck version of Ebenezer Scrooge—a very unsympathetic character. In the end they shelved the idea because a duck who gets all excited about money just was not funny enough.
In an interview, Barks summed up his beliefs about Scrooge and capitalism:
I've always looked at the ducks as caricatured human beings. In rereading the stories, I realized that I had gotten kind of deep in some of them: there was philosophy in there that I hadn't realized I was putting in. It was an added feature that went along with the stories. I think a lot of the philosophy in my stories is conservative—conservative in the sense that I feel our civilization peaked around 1910. Since then we've been going downhill. Much of the older culture had basic qualities that the new stuff we keep hatching can never match.
Look at the magnificent cathedrals and palaces that were built. Nobody can build that sort of thing nowadays. Also, I believe that we should preserve many old ideals and methods of working: honor, honesty, allowing other people to believe in their own ideas, not trying to force everyone into one form. The thing I have against the present political system is that it tries to make everybody exactly alike. We should have a million different patterns.
They say that wealthy people like the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers are sinful because they accumulated fortunes by exploiting the poor. I feel that everybody should be able to rise as high as they can or want to, provided they don't kill anybody or actually oppress other people on the way up. A little exploitation is something you come by in nature. We see it in the pecking order of animals—everybody has to be exploited or to exploit someone else to a certain extent. I don't resent those things.
Gyro Gearloose
Gyro is Duckburg's most famous inventor, even though his inventions don't always work the way he wants them to. His outrageous productivity is presented as a factor in the quality of his inventions; because he always comes up with new ideas, the fact that his inventions often lack an important feature, will often cause trouble for Scrooge or Donald who have bought the invention. He is known as being good-natured towards others. Gyro is often assisted by his Little Helper (or just "Helper"), who is a small anthropomorphicrobot with a light bulb for a head.[1] Besides Little Helper, he has also a "thinking cap", a hat shaped like a combination of a roof-top and a nest, with three black birds living in it. Wearing this thinking cap helps Gyro figure out particularly difficult problems, but it only works if the birds are currently nesting in the cap. Some stories have involved the birds leaving Gyro's thinking cap, resulting in the cap becoming ineffective.
Some of Gyro's relatives include his father Fulton Gearloose, his grandfather Ratchet Gearloose, and Newton Gearloose, his nephew. Occasionally there have been stories about Gyro's girlfriend Matilda. In some stories, Gyro's primary rival is Emil Eagle, although he is also antagonized by the Beagle Boys and Magica De Spell.[2] With his inventions, he is also a very important ally of Donald Duck's alter ego, Paperinik, in the Italian Disney comics. Consistent with the two "G's" in his name, he had bins on his shelves containing odds and ends, which he labeled "Gewgaws", "Gimcracks", "Gadgets" and "Gizmos".
Gyro is Duckburg's most famous inventor, even though his inventions don't always work the way he wants them to. His outrageous productivity is presented as a factor in the quality of his inventions; because he always comes up with new ideas, the fact that his inventions often lack an important feature, will often cause trouble for Scrooge or Donald who have bought the invention. He is known as being good-natured towards others. Gyro is often assisted by his Little Helper (or just "Helper"), who is a small anthropomorphicrobot with a light bulb for a head.[1] Besides Little Helper, he has also a "thinking cap", a hat shaped like a combination of a roof-top and a nest, with three black birds living in it. Wearing this thinking cap helps Gyro figure out particularly difficult problems, but it only works if the birds are currently nesting in the cap. Some stories have involved the birds leaving Gyro's thinking cap, resulting in the cap becoming ineffective.
Some of Gyro's relatives include his father Fulton Gearloose, his grandfather Ratchet Gearloose, and Newton Gearloose, his nephew. Occasionally there have been stories about Gyro's girlfriend Matilda. In some stories, Gyro's primary rival is Emil Eagle, although he is also antagonized by the Beagle Boys and Magica De Spell.[2] With his inventions, he is also a very important ally of Donald Duck's alter ego, Paperinik, in the Italian Disney comics. Consistent with the two "G's" in his name, he had bins on his shelves containing odds and ends, which he labeled "Gewgaws", "Gimcracks", "Gadgets" and "Gizmos".