Fortune-Hunting

Fortune-Hunting, also known as Gemstone Hunters, is a comic story written and drawn by Carl Barks. It features Donald Duck, Gladstone Gander, Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck and, in his debut, the villainous Skunkum.
==Plot==
Humiliated when Gladstone Gander finds a diamond in a public park, Donald Duck, armed with his nephews' “Rockhounds' Guidebook” Gems For Free, resolves to find gems on his own and prove himself worthier than Gladstone. Driving to a deserted canyon some distance from Duckburg, the Ducks soon find a pocket of gems, and buy the terrain from the seemingly-clueless owner. However, the man, Skunkum the well-named, turns out to have been a confidence artist who had seeded the land with phony gemstones. Rather than simply try to get even with Skunkum, Donald, still set on besting Gladstone, decides to take a page out of the swindler's book instead — against his nephews' advice. Can Gadstone's luck really be bested by swindling and cheating, of all things?
===References===
* The canyon is claimed by Gems For Free to be “good country for onyx, jasper, turquoises, topazes, carnelians and garnets”.
* Skunkum's car is emblazoned with “Skunkum Land Co.”.
* The meteorite found by Gladstone consists of a thin crust encasing a bundle of “garnets, opals, sapphires, rubies, amethysts, carnelians and emeralds”.
===Continuity===
* INDUCKS identifies a later Carl Barks ten-pager, Turkey Trouble (1960), as being a partial remake of Fortune-Hunting, having broadly the same plot structure even if the object of the competition between Donald and Gladstone, and, as a result, the nature of the swindle Donald falls prey to, is shifted completely.
==Behind the scenes==
This story was first printed, untitled, in Walt Disney's Comics & Stories #143. It was reprinted in the U.S.A. in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #369, Gladstone Comic Album #15, Donald Duck #282, and, of course, in the various Carl Barks Libraries. It was also printed in English in the Australian Walt Disney's Comics #77, Walt Disney's Comics #234 and Walt Disney's Comics #320 as well as in the 1978 British publication The Best of Donald Duck #1. It was in this latter printing that it received its earliest-known English-language title of Fortune-Hunting. The story later became known in reference material as Gemstone Hunters, instead.
Interestingly, the story presents a flourish with no impact on the narrative: it is bookended in caption boxes by a retelling of the basic plot in the manner of “a fairy story”, with Gladstone as “a great king”. This gives the narrator more agency than it is usually granted in comic story, Barksian or otherwise. In its original printing, the story was further notable for atypically depicting the 313 as orange rather than using the classic red or red-and-blue colour schemes. The story also has Gladstone Gander incorrectly refer to what is ostensibly a meteorite (being a space rock that fell to the ground unharmed) as a “meteor”. 
Orange 313.png|The orange 313.
Category:Stories
Category:Comic Stories
Category:Carl Barks stories
Category:1952 stories
Category:Donald Duck stories
Category:Gladstone Gander stories
Category:Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck stories
Category:Skunkum stories
fr:Les pierres de la discorde
el:Ιστορία: Κυνηγοί Πολύτιμων Λίθων
it:Paperino e le gemme preziose