Last night, Stephen Colbert guested on Jimmy Kimmel's show and presented him with a gift. On the set of his show, Colbert had a Captain America shield which was presented to him by Joe Quesada back when Joe was the head honcho at Marvel. Colbert said it had been hanging on a wall in the Marvel offices since 1960. Quesada sent it to him and now he was passing it on to Kimmel.
There is an error here. The shield was not hanging in that office since 1960 — a year, let's note, when Marvel wasn't publishing any comics with Captain America…or any super-heroes for that matter. It wasn't there when I first visited the Marvel offices in 1970. It was there when I was there in the eighties though I can't give you a precise year when I saw it on a later visit. I can tell you where I saw it though.
It was in the office of an editor there named Mark Gruenwald who went to work for the company in 1978. In fact, he's the one who had it made…I don't know when. Mark died in 1996 — a terrible loss of a great, clever guy who was liked and loved by everyone. I believe some company has since mass-produced them but when Mark had it made, it was probably a one-of-a-kind item. It would have been nice if someone had mentioned Mark.