Blue Cavern

As I have said before it seems many of the smurfs Schleich made in late 70s and around 1980 seems to have been made to fit very well for promos. Eventhough not always having printed companynames. For Australia I have written about the Smurfee and VFL variations.

But when you check the markings on some of the smurfs Schleichmade these years it seems they must have been made before showing up in catalogue.

First versions of cleaner, ice lolly, first aid, cardplayer, thirsty, champion, toothpaste, rugby, congratulations, pommes etc could all have been made to fit special markets ( countries) or companies in the beginning.

Thirsty for example have very strange marking.

I got a collection with early variations of tennis, pommes etc and noticed the colour of the material on the plug that was the only thing left on the thirsty. It is brown material.

So do you think it was a brown bottle in the beginning or a promo?

Maybe this was a way for Schleich to sell them when Bully still had the license for the smurfs in Germany???

I have been thinking about the pommes also. The first mold( just like the first aid don´t have year and seems to have been made early.

Actually also the hamburger smurf could have been sold already 1979/80 also, because they used the singer mold for this smurf in the beginning. ????

Hi Andre

You could be well right again.
Just like this one.

The Sport & Fitness is found without CE just like the red pants.
But the normal with golden pants most of the times has CE on it.

That makes you think the promo and strange colour one was there first.

Tintin

Yes, the bodybuilder is like you say. It is written about it in the SCCI letters.

The hamburgersmurf was probably not released early but nobody knows since they used the old mold.

But what bottles for thirsty are brown? Brown normal bottle and fanta??

Maybe it is just that the first normal bottle was brown material??

Hi Andre

The normal is brown, but also the Fanta has brown material.

I don't know any other...............

Maybe the normal brown was first made to make a Fanta of it, and later they made a bottle that looked like a real Fanta bottle........

Tintin

the green bottle has almost the same shape as the fanta and I think that was a later variation?? So probably the brown normal bottle was the first one??

Hi Andre

I don't have any papers posters or other material from these promo's so i can't say which one was the first.

Tintin

I've come across this old post when thinking about the Sport and Fitness promo. I've just bought one which never had a keyring, so no hole in the head, and I've also got the one with the keyring. The markings are the same as the red trunk bodybuilder, but why does the Sport and Fitness promo not have a black dot marking where as the red trunk variation, and later the gold trunk Germany CE variation, do have black dots. I know it could be due to where they were painted, but why change of where they were painted? Also, for the red trunk version why do we find some with a promo emblem, as on Christy's site for Fitness Center -Leinzell, and a majority without? Have some had the promo print rubbed off? So were the red trunk Bodybuilder and the gold trunk Sport and Fitness versions made around the same time, just painted in different places?

Just had a read of the SCCI letter and see that the gold (Sport & Fitness) and red trunks were around at the same time.
Maybe the Sport & Fitness promo was painted elsewhere, Germany perhaps?, as there was a larger quantity made?