[smurfowen]

Great help Andre. Thank you

[André]

In the Schleichbook they tell about this about the time after their economical problems:

The end of the Cold War, German reunification in 1990, and the opening up of eastern Europe, paved the way for the smurf´s great comeback. In those countries, the little blue creatures had been familiar for years, but had never been on sale. What then happened was what economists call "catch-up consumerism"-now that they could, people started buying everything they had ever conveted And this included smurfs from Herlikofen, who still had a place in Schleich catalogue, even if the range had been scaled back in terms of breadth and variety. The Smurf´s unexpected second wind marked an triumphant end to a great, significant, and wonderful era, and simultaniously the start of a new one"

[André]

They also tells a bit about the factorysite in Tunesia. They used this also in the 90s. And they also used it during the smurf-era.

[Lia]

Nice to hear this about eastern Europe André!
But it does not surprise me.
The smurfs were already very populair before 1990, because I have dosens of lovely imitations from the former DDR, Poland and probably Russia!
It amazed me so much that the people in Latvia and Lithuania ( I visited both in the past year) , did not know what smurfs were...they even never saw one!
Next year, I `m planning a trip to the last baltic state, Estonia, but I doubt if there will be smurfs for sale? ( They do know the Scheich animals)

Lia

[Arno]

Well,
I try to enter in Schleich history and the forum is very helpful.
André, can I know what exactly is the Schleich book (I mean the exact reference, title, author, year, editor, I can't find it on the web) and, if not secret, where did you get it ?
Second, did you get your answer from Schleich about Kellogg's / BP ?

There is so much to learn and I am very surprised that we can't know more from people who worked at Schleich or Wallace Berrie, they are not all so old at this time !

[André]

Hi Arno,

The Schleich book is the one Schleich sold on their website on their 75 year anniversary. It tells us alot about the history.

Schleich has not answered me about Kelloggs and I think they do not know about that. Personally I do not think the Kelloggs smurfs were the Schleichmade smurfs. But I could be wrong?? The Kelloggs smurfs seems more like they were made for Dupuis with the fact that the boxes showed also a comicstrip. I would guess they could be the Dupuissmurfs from 1965/66. ??

[concertman]

Some more info. on the book. I bought a used copy for a few dollars on Amazon.com. Here's a link to the book on the publisher's web site:
http://www.dom-publishers.com/products/ ... ition.html

[Arno]

Thank you very much for the link. Good to see there exists a french version of that Schleich book.

Well, about Kellogg's, I have read threads here but what surprises me is that we / you guess and guess, whereas we should know : Kellogg's still exists (no?) the firm has archives, workers that could remember. Schleich or Dupuis could answer too, if they made the smurfs for Kellogg's. And any old collector that remind that neither ?