Gyro Gearloose allegedly being born in 1922

[LP]

The other week, the Swedish Kalle Anka & co-Facebook page ran a quiz where they claimed that Gyro was born in 1922. I had never heard of this date being associated with Gyro before. Most birth dates come from Don Rosa's personal notes or his family tree-sketch. However, Gyro is not in the sketch, so I asked where the 1922 came from.
The people behind the Facebook page got back to me and told me that there are many pages online saying something to the effect of "according to Don Rosa's chronology, Gyro was born in 1922". However, neither they nor me could find such a chronology which actually mentions Gyro's birth date. To avoid spreading misinformation, they removed their 1922-question, which I appreciate. 

However, this got me thinking - what is this chronology these pages are referencing? And where did the 1922-date come from originally? As previously mentioned, there's no information about Gyro in Rosa's tree-sketch. Back in 1994, Rosa wrote a DCML-post where he lists every birth- and death date according to his own view of the Duck-universe. Gyro is not there, even though Rosa ends the message with "That's all that's in my notes.".

My own theory is that Gyro being born in 1922 is nothing more than some random person's fan-canon, that somehow got misinterpreted as "Rosa-canon" by someone else, and was mistakenly linked to Rosa's chronology in the process. 
What do you think? Have I missed something? Also, is there actually some sort of detailed chronology-document that Rosa has written, or are his notes and The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck-story everything we know?

[That Duckfan]

Yeah, that sounds like somebody's fan canon that got echoed over the internet. It's been stated on the Don Rosa Facebook page that there's detailed chronology document written by Rosa, so "that's all that's in my notes" seems pretty conclusive to me.

1922 is a fairly specific date. If I were to hazard a guess, whoever came up with that date looked at A Little Something Special / Gyro's First Invention / Gladstone's Terrible Secret as being either made or set in 1952, and then reckoned that Gyro is about thirty years old, and back-dated his birth to 1922. I don't have any strong opinions on Gyro's age, but my own timeline follows a roughly similar pattern. Shacktown taking place over Christmas 1951, First Invention in Spring 1952, and the framing device a few years later (I penciled in 1957 for a five-year anniversary, but that can be shortened for people who don't like my long chronology).

I used to think of Gyro as a few years older than Donald, due to his height and glasses. But other stories seem to indicate they're more similar in age, especially in team-ups with Fethry or Bum-Bum.

[sim]

It wouldn't make much sense since Donald was born in 1920 according to Rosa and Gyro is older than him. In one Italian story precisely I remember Gyro saying something like "I was a new born 50 years ago", I guess it was by Martina.

[juicymcduck]

Kari Korhonen, at any rate, seems to think Gyro is older than that. After all, he appears as a kid of undetermined age in The Disappearance of the Gearloose Brothers, which is set in the Edwardian era --- in 1903 if I'm not mistaken. I briefly discussed it with him, and he said he always assumed Gyro was "somewhere between Donald and Scrooge, maybe in his forties" during the "present time" era. If we agree that said "present time" are the Barksian 1950s, that doesn't really add up anyway.

[sim]

Jun 29, 2021 13:15:09 GMT sim said:

It wouldn't make much sense since Donald was born in 1920 according to Rosa and Gyro is older than him. In one Italian story precisely I remember Gyro saying something like "I was a new born 50 years ago", I guess it was by Martina.        

THIS was the story.

As you can see, Donald says: "Fifty years ago I wasn't born yet!"



And, in the next panel, Gyro states: "You well know that fifty years ago I was still a baby!"

[That Duckfan]

For what it's worth, Fulton Gearloose is likely to have been born after 1883 (per Rosa, of course). With his retirement at the beginning of Gyro's First Invention, I would guess Fulton was born circa 1887. Donald goes on to mention when Gyro and he were kids, so they're not too far apart in age. Anywhere between 1917 and 1927 seems a reasonable guess.

[Spectrus]

Jun 29, 2021 17:36:21 GMT sim said:

Jun 29, 2021 13:15:09 GMT sim said:

It wouldn't make much sense since Donald was born in 1920 according to Rosa and Gyro is older than him. In one Italian story precisely I remember Gyro saying something like "I was a new born 50 years ago", I guess it was by Martina.        

THIS was the story.

As you can see, Donald says: "Fifty years ago I wasn't born yet!"

And, in the next panel, Gyro states: "You well know that fifty years ago I was still a baby!"

That story is such a mess I wouldn't use it as the basis of anything, really. Though I could accept Gyro being in his 40s

[LP]

I've also always imagined Gyro as being 5-10 years older than Donald, which is partly why the 1922-date stuck out to me so much.

[bats]

Jun 29, 2021 20:55:16 GMT Spectrus said:

Jun 29, 2021 17:36:21 GMT sim said:

THIS was the story.

As you can see, Donald says: "Fifty years ago I wasn't born yet!"

And, in the next panel, Gyro states: "You well know that fifty years ago I was still a baby!"

That story is such a mess I wouldn't use it as the basis of anything, really. Though I could accept Gyro being in his 40s

It's THE most insane bonkers Disney story I've ever read, and I love it for it.

[sim]

Jun 29, 2021 16:03:08 GMT juicymcduck said:

Kari Korhonen, at any rate, seems to think Gyro is older than that. After all, he appears as a kid of undetermined age in The Disappearance of the Gearloose Brothers, which is set in the Edwardian era --- in 1903 if I'm not mistaken. I briefly discussed it with him, and he said he always assumed Gyro was "somewhere between Donald and Scrooge, maybe in his forties" during the "present time" era. If we agree that said "present time" are the Barksian 1950s, that doesn't really add up anyway.

May I quote Korhonen's quote (sorry for the repetition) to you in a future blog post I am writing?

[donaldistducktoons]

Good theory, although I've always considered Gyro to be Donald Duck's peer, since they're best friends, or that Gyro is two or three years younger than Donald. Especially if we consider (if we use canon TLTS by Don Rosa) that Donald was born in 1920 and Gyro two years later.

Although various comic writers and artists will use their own canon in which Gyro is either 30 or 50 years old, it all depends on the authors themselves.

[Dr Ivo G Bombastus]

Jun 29, 2021 9:35:43 GMT LP said:

My own theory is that Gyro being born in 1922 is nothing more than some random person's fan-canon, that somehow got misinterpreted as "Rosa-canon" by someone else, and was mistakenly linked to Rosa's chronology in the process. 
What do you think? Have I missed something?

It would be very weird if they saw this post I made in 2019 where I list Gyro's year of birth as 1922.

I'm pretty sure I picked that year because of how much younger Fulton is than Hortense and Quackmore in Lo$ chapter 10.

[RobbK1]

Jun 29, 2021 18:12:36 GMT That Duckfan said:

For what it's worth, Fulton Gearloose is likely to have been born after 1883 (per Rosa, of course). With his retirement at the beginning of Gyro's First Invention, I would guess Fulton was born circa 1887. Donald goes on to mention when Gyro and he were kids, so they're not too far apart in age. Anywhere between 1917 and 1927 seems a reasonable guess.

In the Dutch "Young Donald" series, Gyro and Donald are in the same class in elementary school, so they should be no more than one year apart, most likely a fair amount less than that.  It would be more likely that Gyro is a slight bit older, so, if Donald were born in 1920, Gyro would have been born in 1918, 1919, or 1920.