From The Scoop: Steve Geppi Acquires Bruce Hamilton Collection
From the March 24 issue of Gemstone Publishing's The Scoop:
Diamond Comic Distributors President and Chief Executive Officer Steve Geppi has acquired The Bruce Hamilton Collection, a collection of premiere quality material assembled by one of the most ardent proponents of Disneyana. Terms of the deal between Geppi and Helen Hamilton, Bruce's devoted wife, were not disclosed.
The vast array of Disney items in the collection include production art, works by Carl Barks, movie posters, bone china, hand-written scripts, stuffed toys, and many other objects. One of the prizes “Parade of Award Nominees,” original art, full-color, nitrate celluloid featuring Mickey Mouse, as seen in the opening few seconds of a short-short shown exclusively at the November 18, 1932 Academy Awards. The film was the first to show Mickey Mouse in color, and its existence had been forgotten by The Walt Disney Company until 1998.
Other key items in the collection include Visitor From Underground (a money bin oil painting on slate by Carl Barks), the only known copy of Don Donald (a 60” x 40” linen-backed movie poster of the January 1937 release), a 6”4” stuffed Mickey Mouse toy from the 1930s, Carl Barks' 10-page hand-written script of "The Not So Ancient Mariner,” Mickey Mouse Magazine #1 (1933) in Near Mint condition, and Don Rosa's 10-page original pencil drawings and ink lettering of "The Money Pit."
The collection also features the entire Series II Gladstone comic series of Disney comics, comic albums, books and lithographs published by Hamilton during the 1980s and 1990s.
Hamilton, who passed away June 30, 2005, possessed an imposing stature, a radio announcer's voice, and a fiery drive. He was a primal force in getting the comics industry organized, first as a dealer in Golden Age comics, then in other diverse collectibles such as original art, movie posters, and cartoon cels. He was among the first to suggest that classic material be repackaged into deluxe formats. Together with Russ Cochran, he was largely responsible for promoting Carl Barks into the superstar he became in the 1980s and onward. Barks' work was already known, thanks to the efforts of Malcolm Willits and others, but Hamilton significantly made his work better-known.
He began a 20-year relationship with The Walt Disney Company in 1980 when he and Cochran acquired a license to produce The Fine art of Walt Disney's Donald Duck, a collection of all of the Carl Barks Disney-based oil paintings to that date. The book sold out quickly and won an award for excellence in production values from the American Bookbinders Association. The success of that project enabled Hamilton to acquire the Disney license to produce limited edition lithographs based upon newly-produced Barks oil paintings.
After Western Publishing dropped the license to produce the Disney comics in the mid-1980s, he was granted the license and the now-legendary Gladstone Publishing company was created.
"I've said publicly a number of times that I considered Bruce to be a mentor, as well as a friend and business associate. The knowledge we lost in his passing is incalculable, but he'll certainly live on in the hearts of his family and friends, and in the collections of many thousands of Disney fans around the world,” Geppi said.
Some components of The Bruce Hamilton Collection will end up in Geppi's EntertainmentMuseum at Camden Yards, which is set to open this Summer. Other pieces will be featured in upcoming auctions, the details of which will be announced at a later date.
“Bruce left a great legacy for historians and collectors to learn from and to simply enjoy,” Geppi said.
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