The Gilded Man is a comic created by Carl Barks and originally published by Dell Comics Four Color #422 in 1952. A sequel was made almost 50 years later when Don Rosa wrote The Last Lord of El Dorado. This is also the story where Barks introduced the fictional state of Calisota as the location of Duckburg.
Donald Duck has found himself a new hobby in the art of philately, more commonly known as stamp collecting, and his greatest desire is to get his hands on one of the world's rarest, the One Cent Magenta, worth $50.000. When his cousin Gladstone's infuriating luck comes into play once again, Donald gets a bit of luck of his own for once when the two find a stamp album belonging to the rich but somewhat absent-minded collector Philo T. Ellic, who happily gives them $1000 each as thanks for returning his stamps. With this sudden windfall, Donald sets off with his nephews in tow in search for this rare stamp. Their destination? British Guiana (or Guyana as it is known in modern day.)
Unfortunately, finding a single stamp in all of Guiana turns out to be harder than expected, as the natives have made a small industry of letting foreign stamp collectors dig through their old letters in search of the rare stamp. The Ducks finally have some luck a week into their search, when the nephews save an old man from piranhas. In gratitude, he tells them that in 1856, his father had been a mail carrier on his way to Georgetown, and that one of the letters he was carrying held the fabled One Cent Magenta. However, on his way to Georgetown, he was captured by a tribe of indians, led by none other than El Dorado, or The Gilded Man, a mythical figure known for being covered entirerly in gold. While his father escaped, his mail bag was left behind, and as far as the old man knows, the Gilded Man still has it, as the golden man had ironically been intrigued by the silver buckles on the bag.
With their first real lead, the Ducks takes a helicopter across the Savannah to the edge of the Guinea jungles, where a long treck takes them far from civilization. Days later, the Ducks are on the verge of giving up, the dense jungle making it almost impossible to find anything, when Donald notices a monkey sitting on Deweys shoulder. Realizing it's acting too tame to be wild, they follow it, eventually stumbling across a paved path leading to an ancient, Incan-like temple, which is filled with old Spanish armor and weapons, neatly arranged like a museum. And sure enough, the centerpiece of this collection turns out to be none other than the elusive mail sack, kept on display because of it's silver buckles. Donald thinks his quest has come to an end when he finds the letter, but the nephews are more interested in what just showed up behind him...The Gilded Man!
The Gilded Man, a towering behemoth covered head to toe in gold, isn't the least bit happy that four foreign ducks have dared to touch his prized silver artifacts, and has them thrown in the dungeons awaiting punishment in the next morning. Knowing El Dorado's obsession with silver, the nephews had hoped to pick up a few trinkets on the way in case of this exact situation, but didn't have enough money and had to settle for a bottle of silver paint. When Donald is hoisted out of the dungeon the next morning, the boys put their plan into action and manages to weaken the floor The Gilden Man is standing on, causing him to fall into the dungeon and knocking him out long enough to repaint him silver. El Dorado and his subjects are so shocked at this transformation that the Ducks manage to get away in the confusion, taking the mail bag and a pair of the golden giant's pants (as proof for the old man that his father had been telling the truth).
Unfortunately, the Ducks aren't home safe just yet - the mail bag is seized by the authorities, as despite it's age, it's still official mail, and has to be delivered to it's rightful recipients. However, they decide to give Donald a break, and gives him the adress for the One Cent Magenta Stamp in person so he can at least try and get it back. But this turns out to be no easy task as the recipient, Susibelle Swan of Ohio, has moved around a lot in the past 90 years, and the chase ends up taking the Ducks all the way back to Duckburg, where the letter ends up going to Miss Swan's sole heir - you guessed it, Gladstone Gander!
With Gladstone selling the stamp to Philo T. Ellic and walking off with the $50.000, Donald sends the nephews home so he can have a few tantrums over all his hard work coming to nothing. But all is not lost yet, as the absentminded Mr. Ellic rushes off to San Francisco to show off his new prize to his fellow collectors, only to forget where he's going halfway there, stopping on the Duckburg bridge to gather his thoughts, then decides to take a taxi to the trainstation, but accidentally leaves his stamp album behind again! Luckily, Donald happens to be standing nearby, cursing his misfortune, and grabs the album, finally catching up to Mr. Ellic (who'd accidentally gotten on the train to Chicago rather than San Francisco) who happily rewards him with another $50.000.
Tropes:
- Cassandra Truth: No one believed the Old Man's father when he claimed the Gilded Man stole the mail bag, thinking he'd just ended up with some jungle fever and hallucinated the whole thing.
- Forgetful Jones: Philo T. Ellic, he basically forgets everything around him as soon as it's out of sight. He gets Gladstones name wrong, mistakes Donald for Gladstone despite initially meeting both of them at the same time, pays a reward for the same thing twice, leaves his priceless stamp collection behind, tells his butler to pack his bags and bring his car around, then just runs out the door, and gets on a train to Chicago when he meant to go to San Francisco.
- MacGuffin: The One Cent Magenta, a very rare stamp last seen in British Guiana during the 1850's. Dozens of stamp collectors still flock there over a century later in the hopes of finding one, which the natives use to their advantage by charging a small fee for anyone wanting to go through their old mail.
- Made O' Gold: Everything The Gilded Man wears is made of gold, including the bone through his nose.
- Large and in Charge: The Gilden Man is huge, towering over not just the Ducks, but his own subjects.
- Piranha Problem: The Old Man accidentally crashes his speedboat and falls into the river, where he's beset by swarms of piranhas. Huey, Dewey and Louie save him by throwing him a cannister of castor oil, making him taste so bad the piranhas leave him alone.
- Punny Name: Philo T. Ellic/Philatelic aka someone involved in philately/stamp collecting.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: The One Cent Magenta stamp is based on the British Guiana 1c Magenta
, of which only one is still known to exist, and as recently as 2014, was sold for $10 Million! - Trophy Room: Most of the artifacts in the temple of the Gilded Man is armor, weapons and gold taken from the Spanish conquistadors who were unlucky enough to run into him in person.
- Wins by Doing Absolutely Nothing: Gladstone as usual. Not only does he find Mr. Ellic's stamp album at the bus station about 30 seconds after Donald tells him how valuable stamps can be, which earns him $1000 (Donald gets the same sum because Ellic mistakes him for Gladstone and forgets he already paid a reward), he ends up getting the One Cent Magenta delivered right to him, due to him being related to the woman the letter was meant for.
