Destruction Under Another Rainbow
Share:
he’d do, something that anyone who knows him finds hard to fathom, something
that causes him to wince even now as he describes it.
He gathered
together literally hundreds of delicate, finely detailed, high end Disney
collectibles created by his company, Another Rainbow and – with witnesses
present – he destroyed them.
What’s more, The Walt Disney Company was in
on it.
It didn’t start out that way, of course. Hamilton and Another
Rainbow had long been known as leading advocates of Disney characters in comic
books, lithographs, and other items. Hamilton himself was one of the premiere
Disney collectors, an early enthusiast, historian and collector of comics and
other character collectibles. He and his firm had for over 20 years enjoyed a
healthy relationship with Disney and had successfully promoted Carl Barks and
his work to adoring fans.
Getting Started
“The company we
produced the figurines through was a porcelain maker who specialized in
world-class English bone china, in England, called Connoisseur of Malvern. They
had expert sculptors and had a reputation primarily for doing flora and birds.
In fact, in my living room I have number 2 in a limited edition of only 15 of a
large macaw in foliage. It’s just spectacular. I have it in a glass display case
suspended over a staircase,” Hamilton said.
“Russ Cochran and I were
introduced to Connoisseur of Malvern by [noted Barks collector] Kerby Confer. He
had been a fan of their English bone china and he had the idea that maybe some
Disney figures could be done. He also introduced us to Ray Blackman, from the
Brielle art gallery in New Jersey,” he said. “The four of us met in a hotel room
after Kerby had taken the liberty of financing a prototype of Uncle Scrooge from
the painting Always Another Rainbow.
“There were some problems
with it. The hat was not right. The feet and the legs weren’t right. The
sculptor did not understand the way that a duck was anatomically built. They
wanted to make the duck stand like a man, but a duck’s legs are far back on the
body compared to where the head is if you look at Donald Duck or Uncle Scrooge
in profile. Nonetheless, it was pretty impressive,” he said.
“As a
result of that one introduction, we then formed a very close alliance with
Blackman and the owner of Brielle. Then we went over to England and worked with
Connoisseur of Malvern. We sent a copy of the prototype to Carl, which he
critiqued rather extensively,” Hamilton said with a laugh. “On the basis of what
Carl showed us about how to correct that first piece, I also learned a lot of
the physical structure of the duck that I had never known before.
“After
this first one, to avoid the same problem, Carl would provide us with several
drawings of the duck or ducks as seen from the left, right, front, and back, so
the sculptors would see how it looked in ways you couldn’t just perceive from
looking at the original,” he said. “It made all the difference in the world. The
sculptors still made an error or two, but it got to the point at the end when I
didn’t even need to bother Carl because I had his drawings to go by and compare
against the prototype. That’s the reason the figures look so much like Carl’s
work; it was his vision.”
One of Hamilton’s favorites, Lavender and
Old Lace, featured the entire family of ducks. Based on what he describes as
a “very two-dimensional painting,” it was difficult ahead of time to imagine how
the ducks would possibly look in three dimensions and yet still retain the
familiar qualities of the original painting.
“But somehow he managed to
do it,” he said with another laugh.
The Lavender and Old Lace
figure was also one of the first pieces Another Rainbow produced with a small
print run.
“We originally produced 100 figurines, but we realized that
was too many for something so pricey in our market at that particular time. We
cut back to more expensive images, but in smaller editions. The one exception in
how we produced them was Lavender and Old Lace. We produced them as they
were sold. Even though we announced it as an edition of 25, I believe there were
only 17 or 18 made. The numbers above that don’t exist.”
The
Process
“I learned a lot about dimension,” Hamilton said of what he
learned from the process of creating, making and selling the Disney figurines.
“You really need to think three-dimensionally when you’re in this business
because so much of what you see is two dimensional, all the posters, the
lithographs, the comic books, pretty much everything. Thinking in three
dimensions opens up a whole new arena. We produced a very elaborate
three-dimensional bronze of the Wizard of Oz with the four main characters, and
we produced some other figurines that ended up in the prototype
stage.”
In addition to the Disney, Oz and other projects, another of
Hamilton’s efforts came to fruition, though not yet on the consumer end of
things.
“Something that fandom at large doesn’t know is that I worked
out a deal with Mort Walker and the International Museum of Cartoon Art and
produced a small series of bronzes of Beetle Bailey and Sarge in a fight, called
“Negotiations.” It was actually sculpted by Mort Walker. A lot of people don’t
realize he has that depth. I have never released this edition into the market.
All the bronzes are sitting in my storage area, waiting. I’ve already paid Mort
and the museum their royalties,” he said. “So it’s home free and I can do
whatever I want with it when the time comes.”
Hamilton said that part of
the process included being surprised once again by Carl Barks.
“Carl had
depths he didn’t even know he had. He drew nothing but two-dimensional
characters most of his life. Yet when he started to get into oil paintings he
realized that he was starting to get into the field of three-dimensional
reality. Even though the characters were still flat, because of the shading he
needed to start thinking three-dimensionally. He tackled that like he did every
other job, with precision. He always had a flare for invention,” he
said.
“Gare Barks [Carl’s wife] told a story of when he first wanted to
start painting the ducks. He got out a Ping-Pong ball, attached a string to it,
and studied it under different lighting conditions to figure out how shadows
looked on a sphere. It was from studying that Ping-Pong ball that he finally
learned how to shade the heads of the ducks. That’s the way he approached
everything.”
Perils and Pitfalls
While every project has its
pitfalls, Hamilton said that none of them came from working with
Barks.
“No matter how big or complex a problem was, he would always make
it seem easy. Whether it was easy for him or not, nobody knew. He always seemed
to have the right answer for balance, for color, for the way he drew, even the
way he would construct imaginary inventions,” Hamilton said, pointing out the
pulley used to lift the treasure in Return to Morgan’s Island as an
example. “If you were to try to construct it using the way it looked in the
painting, he wanted it to really work.”
Other problems were more from
the technical side, particularly with the lithographs.
“Getting the
printers to do the colors right was a problem, especially if we tried to do
lithographs from photographs. When we did the Fine Art book, there must
have been 50 different photographers involved,” he said, sometimes resulting in
a less than optimum reproduction. “A lot of paintings looked great as
reproduced, but if you were to compare them to the original oils they look
different.”
While Hamilton said there were never any problems with Barks
on the creative side of the business, being a Disney licensee wasn’t without its
ups and downs.
“Disney was surprisingly accommodating considering the
type of company they turned into. In the very beginning you could strike a deal
with Disney and they would honor it on the basis of a handshake. When the big
shake-up came a number of years ago, the corporate raiders were after Disney.
All the new people, [Michael] Eisner and [Frank] Wells and the MBAs, came in and
tried to rethink the world according to Disney. All of the integrity that the
early company had, in my opinion, vanished. You couldn’t trust them even if you
had a contract. Nonetheless, we remained grandfathered in by having been there
before the regime took over,” Hamilton said. “It was an uneasy alliance, but it
went along for many years without any real problems.”
He said that
Another Rainbow was one time described as the “maraschino cherry” sitting on top
of the sundae that represented all their licensees world wide.
“So you
can see what a disappointment it was when little by little the people we had
established these great relationships with all retired, quit, were fired, went
away or were replaced by MBAs who didn’t know their butts from a hole in the
ground,” he said.
Crush, Kill, Destroy
“What lead to it was
that we had a five-year battle of me threatening Disney and Disney coming back
and threatening me. Even though we had these battles, they were more like a
sparing match until the Grandys [Bill and Kathy] becoming associated with Carl.
They were going off and working deals with people in Europe, and the people in
Europe didn’t particularly care what kind of certificates of authenticity came
with anything we did here. They would license product over there that would that
would be in direct competition, releasing some of the same images in violation
of our license. Disney would never have done anything like that during the old
administration. When I complained about it, they flatly refused to do anything
about it.
“It finally got so serious that toward to the end of 2000, all
avenues of compromise or re-direction had been exhausted.
“So I
proposed that we have a settlement conference with a professional mediator that
would keep us from litigation. It was not an arbitration that would force a
solution, but it would be handled by one of the top mediating concerns in the
country, who had something like an 85-90% success ratio of reconciling
differences between companies.
“When we first sat down, I did something
the mediator wasn’t prepared for. I said, ‘Before we get into negotiations on
any of the issues, I’m going to make a proposal to Disney.’ The mediator said,
‘No, you’re not.’ I said, ‘Yes, I am.’ The first battle of that day was 15
minutes into the session, when I got into a knock-down, drag-out fight with the
mediator.”
Hamilton prevailed. Years prior he had discussed with Disney
their option to buy him out. He put this discussion back on the table. After
outlining his expectation that the Faberge Eggs (Scrooge McDuck Midnight Eggs)
and the figurines would only go on to a higher level of success if the inventory
levels were reduced or if new ones were allowed to be made, he agreed to destroy
all but his personal inventory if they agreed to his buyout price. The mediator
talked to the Disney team about the offer.
“They said ‘yes,’ and it was
over. They didn’t question anything,” Hamilton said, so the deal was done. All
was not over, though.
A week later, a sort of last minute offer came in
for all the lithographs, figurines and Faberge eggs. Hamilton said he wanted to
accept, but Disney stuck to the letter of their then-new agreement and,
unbelievably, passed on a huge royalty for themselves. Then came the actual
destruction.
“The day of March 1, 2001, there were ten people present
when these items which I have carefully documented were all destroyed. My wife
Helen and I, my daughter, and my three grandchildren comprised six of the group
of 10 that were there. The three grandchildren were the ones who actually
destroyed them. At that age, this was a hoot. No one else present could have
done it. They could because they didn’t really understand what was going on.
“Disney had an official there named Guido Marx. In addition to my
family, our side had a close family friend, Margaret Lambert, and a couple of
collectors, Homer Kellogg and Ed Bergen,” he said.
“There was a quarter
million dollars worth of stuff smashed. The entire proceeding, from beginning to
end, was videotaped. A figurine would be put into a box, one of the kids would
work over the top of it so pieces of porcelain wouldn’t go all over the place,
and then they’d bring the hammer down,” he said.
“I had gone through
such an emotional roller coaster that by the time the day actually came around I
was sort of numb. I was intrigued by the insanity of it all.
“The only
thing that has kept the values down on these items in the past is that with a
couple exceptions, most items were still available from us. So if someone wanted
to buy one of them, particularly if they wanted a pristine, untouched figurine
or lithograph, why would they buy a ‘used’ copy from someone else unless it was
discounted?
“However, now there are only a handful remaining in my own
personal collection. When the market becomes fully aware that they can’t just go
out and get them, prices could increase drastically. It takes knowledge. People
have to know about it for it to have an impact,” he said.
Hamilton said
that he didn’t expect to work with Disney again, but he wouldn’t rule it out
entirely because personnel and circumstances always change. After all, there’s
always another rainbow.
THE SCOOP ON THE WITNESSED
DESTRUCTION
MARCH 1, 2001
Dude for a Day
(figurine) *
Edition closed at: 74 (rather than 100)
Total destroyed:
26
Numbers destroyed: 12, 13, 14, 17, 19, 21, 23, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 33,
34, 36, 37, 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 49, 50, 100
Pick & Shovel
Laborer (figurine) *
Edition closed at: 62 (rather than 100)
Total
destroyed: 38
Numbers destroyed: 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 30, 31,
33, 34, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 53, 54, 61, 63,
64, 65, 66, 71, 72, 77, 99, 100
Sixty Years Quacking (figurine)
*
Edition closed at: 44 (rather than 100)
Total destroyed:
56
Numbers destroyed: 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27,
28, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51,
52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 72, 77, 78, 84, 88,
95, 99
* The accompanying lithographs to these destroyed figurines
were salvaged and turned over to The Walt Disney
Company.
Quintessential Scrooge (figurine)
Edition closed at:
54 (rather than 500)
Total destroyed: 46
Numbers destroyed: N/A – 46
destroyed by individual count; the items were not numbered.
Special
notes: Only 100 of the projected 500 of this edition were actually
made.
Scrooge McDuck Midnight Eggs (Faberge Eggs)
Edition
closed at: 73 rather than 250 (only 100 were actually made)
Total destroyed:
27
Numbers destroyed: 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 31, 33, 34, 36, 37, 38, 40, 41,
42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 54, 55, 56, 61, 62, 63, 64
mic-Con Int.<br><br><br><b>The Uncanny (Real) X-Plane
- <A
HREF=involved,” he said, sometimes resulting in
a less than optimum reproduction. ”A lot of paintings looked great as
reproduced, but if you were to compare them to the original oils they look
different.”<br> <br>While Hamilton said there were never any problems with Barks
on the creative side of the business, being a Disney licensee wasn’t without its
ups and downs.<br> <br>”Disney was surprisingly accommodating considering the
type of company they turned into. In the very beginning you could strike a deal
with Disney and they would honor it on the basis of a handshake. When the big
shake-up came a number of years ago, the corporate raiders were after Disney.
All the new people, [Michael] Eisner and [Frank] Wells and the MBAs, came in and
tried to rethink the world according to Disney. All of the integrity that the
early company had, in my opinion, vanished. You couldn’t trust them even if you
had a contract. Nonetheless, we remained grandfathered in by having been there
before the regime took over,” Hamilton said. ”It was an uneasy alliance, but it
went along for many years without any real problems.”<br> <br>He said that
Another Rainbow was one time described as the ”maraschino cherry” sitting on top
of the sundae that represented all their licensees world wide. <br> <br>”So you
can see what a disappointment it was when little by little the people we had
established these great relationships with all retired, quit, were fired, went
away or were replaced by MBAs who didn’t know their butts from a hole in the
ground,” he said.<br><br><b>Crush, Kill, Destroy</b><br> ”What lead to it was
that we had a five-year battle of me threatening Disney and Disney coming back
and threatening me. Even though we had these battles, they were more like a
sparing match until the Grandys [Bill and Kathy] becoming associated with Carl.
They were going off and working deals with people in Europe, and the people in
Europe didn’t particularly care what kind of certificates of authenticity came
with anything we did here. They would license product over there that would that
would be in direct competition, releasing some of the same images in violation
of our license. Disney would never have done anything like that during the old
administration. When I complained about it, they flatly refused to do anything
about it.<br><br>”It finally got so serious that toward to the end of 2000, all
avenues of compromise or re-direction had been exhausted. <br> <br>”So I
proposed that we have a settlement conference with a professional mediator that
would keep us from litigation. It was not an arbitration that would force a
solution, but it would be handled by one of the top mediating concerns in the
country, who had something like an 85-90% success ratio of reconciling
differences between companies.<br> <br>”When we first sat down, I did something
the mediator wasn’t prepared for. I said, ’Before we get into negotiations on
any of the issues, I’m going to make a proposal to Disney.’ The mediator said,
’No, you’re not.’ I said, ’Yes, I am.’ The first battle of that day was 15
minutes into the session, when I got into a knock-down, drag-out fight with the
mediator.”<br> <br>Hamilton prevailed. Years prior he had discussed with Disney
their option to buy him out. He put this discussion back on the table. After
outlining his expectation that the Faberge Eggs (Scrooge McDuck Midnight Eggs)
and the figurines would only go on to a higher level of success if the inventory
levels were reduced or if new ones were allowed to be made, he agreed to destroy
all but his personal inventory if they agreed to his buyout price. The mediator
talked to the Disney team about the offer.<br> <br>”They said ’yes,’ and it was
over. They didn’t question anything,” Hamilton said, so the deal was done. All
was not over, though.<br> <br>A week later, a sort of last minute offer came in
for all the lithographs, figurines and Faberge eggs. Hamilton said he wanted to
accept, but Disney stuck to the letter of their then-new agreement and,
unbelievably, passed on a huge royalty for themselves. Then came the actual
destruction.<br> <br>”The day of March 1, 2001, there were ten people present
when these items which I have carefully documented were all destroyed. My wife
Helen and I, my daughter, and my three grandchildren comprised six of the group
of 10 that were there. The three grandchildren were the ones who actually
destroyed them. At that age, this was a hoot. No one else present could have
done it. They could because they didn’t really understand what was going on.
<br> <br>”Disney had an official there named Guido Marx. In addition to my
family, our side had a close family friend, Margaret Lambert, and a couple of
collectors, Homer Kellogg and Ed Bergen,” he said.<br> <br>”There was a quarter
million dollars worth of stuff smashed. The entire proceeding, from beginning to
end, was videotaped. A figurine would be put into a box, one of the kids would
work over the top of it so pieces of porcelain wouldn’t go all over the place,
and then they’d bring the hammer down,” he said.<br> <br>”I had gone through
such an emotional roller coaster that by the time the day actually came around I
was sort of numb. I was intrigued by the insanity of it all.<br> <br>”The only
thing that has kept the values down on these items in the past is that with a
couple exceptions, most items were still available from us. So if someone wanted
to buy one of them, particularly if they wanted a pristine, untouched figurine
or lithograph, why would they buy a ’used’ copy from someone else unless it was
discounted?<br><br>”However, now there are only a handful remaining in my own
personal collection. When the market becomes fully aware that they can’t just go
out and get them, prices could increase drastically. It takes knowledge. People
have to know about it for it to have an impact,” he said. <br><br>Hamilton said
that he didn’t expect to work with Disney again, but he wouldn’t rule it out
entirely because personnel and circumstances always change. After all, there’s
always another rainbow.<br><br><br><b>THE SCOOP ON THE WITNESSED
DESTRUCTION</b><br><b><i>MARCH 1, 2001</i></b><br><br><b>Dude for a Day
(figurine) *</b><br>Edition closed at: 74 (rather than 100)<br>Total destroyed:
26<br>Numbers destroyed: 12, 13, 14, 17, 19, 21, 23, 24, 25, 27, 30, 31, 33,
34, 36, 37, 38, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 49, 50, 100<br><br><b>Pick & Shovel
Laborer (figurine) *</b><br>Edition closed at: 62 (rather than 100)<br>Total
destroyed: 38<br>Numbers destroyed: 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 30, 31,
33, 34, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 52, 53, 54, 61, 63,
64, 65, 66, 71, 72, 77, 99, 100<br><br><b>Sixty Years Quacking (figurine)
*</b><br>Edition closed at: 44 (rather than 100)<br>Total destroyed:
56<br>Numbers destroyed: 11, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27,
28, 30, 31, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 42, 43, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51,
52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 72, 77, 78, 84, 88,
95, 99<br><br><b>*</b> The accompanying lithographs to these destroyed figurines
were salvaged and turned over to The Walt Disney
Company.<br><br><b>Quintessential Scrooge (figurine)</b><br>Edition closed at:
54 (rather than 500) <br>Total destroyed: 46<br>Numbers destroyed: N/A - 46
destroyed by individual count; the items were not numbered.<br><b>Special
notes:</b> Only 100 of the projected 500 of this edition were actually
made.<br><br><b>Scrooge McDuck Midnight Eggs (Faberge Eggs)</b><br>Edition
closed at: 73 rather than 250 (only 100 were actually made)<br>Total destroyed:
27<br>Numbers destroyed: 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 31, 33, 34, 36, 37, 38, 40, 41,
42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 54, 55, 56, 61, 62, 63, 64<