1-71 A Tall Ship and a Star to Steer Her By
Barks' first official Disney painting
 

When Barks began producing his paintings in a serious attempt to make a living from them his earnings were relatively modest. His early paintings depicting local churches from 1959 sold for $4.50, a sum of money that may seem rather ridiculous to people of today. But you have to take into account that inflation has skyrocketed our monetary definitions. In those days the average newspaper sold for 15¢, which equals today's average price of 75¢, and a comic book sold for 10¢.

When he first got permission to paint the Disney ducks Barks sold most of his paintings for $150. Again, the amount seem very modest compared to today, but Barks knew what he did. Here is his own account of the costs (in dollars) for making one of his early duck paintings:

Painting panel: 1.00
Paint and varnish: 1.50
Brushes at 2 per painting 1.50 each: 3.00
Frame (average): 12.00
Photography slides + prints: 4.00
Shipping average: 5.00
Crate lumber: 5.00
Phone calls and postage: 3.50

This makes a total cost of $35. The rest, $115, was then taxed at 33⅓% leaving a net amount for a painting at 80$. But this was not Barks' genuine profit! He estimated an average production time of 12 days for such a painting leaving him with a daily 'income' of only $6.67! Clearly, Barks did not become wealthy from his early painting productions, but things soon changed.

You can make your own calculations on Barks' other day pays with other painting prices, for instance, his daily 'income' for a $500 painting would increase to almost $26 using the above formula.

1-80 Xerxes and the Harem

Below you are presented to one example covering most of the cost figures (in dollars) connected with both painting and lithography for the above work:

Canvas and material* 10.00
Kodacolor and slide photography 20.00
Transparencies 35.00
300 prints 6,350.00
Brochures for mailing 66.39
Envelopes 14.10
Addressing envelopes 40.00
Postage stamps 60.00
Misc. supplies 16.98
Rubber stamp 2.86
B/W photos 30.08
Commercials (5x60.00) 300.00
Strapping tape 18.12
Telephone bills 26.38
Travel expenses 240.00
2 exhibition frames 116.96
Postage October/November 133.18
Postage December 260.90
Trip to Scottsdale + motels + meals 637.78

The list goes on and the total costs are booked as $8,574.00 until the end of December. At that point the sales had ended at $10,180.00, thus making a preliminary profit of $964.00.
It is interesting that Barks' earlier painting 40-78 Beowulf had a cost of $6,862.00, but only a sale of $6,220.00, meaning a loss at the time of $642.00!
Notice that the sales figures are not the final ones. Over time Barks earned a lot more from different sources. For instance, the original painting of Xerxes sold for $20,000.00, and he drew remarques on numerous of the lithographs at $50 a piece. See more on the concept of remarques HERE.

* The dramatically modest amount compared to the total costs cover the use of many tools (see more HERE).