Blue Cavern

I got this lot from US that I been going through now.

The reason I bought it was because it seemed to be one of those Collection I Always looks for. A collection only bought during a short time. Those ones helps me understanding which smurfs were sold certain years and also how they were sold.

This Collection had only smurfs bought from 1983 and until they stopped with the smurfs in US. The limited edition smurfs that ended with the 2 Babies with car and blocks in July 1985. Just like the SCCI founders tells us in their letters. The last 6 ones never got to the shelves in the US( Smurfette with gown, smurf with tux, Baby with bowl, baby with butterfly, Pilot and stewardess).

Almost are smurfs are there except a few ones, for example the devil. It is almost like the smurfs sold when the blue moon poster was made, so if you remove all the ones marked with R( retired) on that poster it is almost a perfect match. Also with the seasonal figurines. And then off course add the ones sold after that.

I also got a lot of supersmurfs but not all were complete since accessories were missing.

Some got these stickers.

And I also got both the sectretary smurfettes from HK with both pink and white dress. Just like the ones on Dyars website.

Congratulations Andre

I must confess there is nothing better than getting a collection of smurfs and finding treasures within the collection. Last year I was lucky enough to get a couple of smurfs with rare markings. I was so happy with myself.

I can't wait to hear more about the collection.
P.S Do you mind adding a photo of the secretaries to the newly created thread under the Variations section. Many thanks in advance.

Congratulations Andre

I must confess there is nothing better than getting a collection of smurfs and finding treasures within the collection. Last year I was lucky enough to get a couple of smurfs with rare markings. I was so happy with myself.

I can't wait to hear more about the collection.
P.S Do you mind adding a photo of the secretaries to the newly created thread under the Variations section. Many thanks in advance.

Thanks Kath

I put them in the W Berrie articlenumber-order. How they were sold in the US.

It is a lovely lot and the smurfs are in so fantastic condition. I did not expect that, only a few of them has marks.

I added the secretary-picture directly to the secretarythread after I added it here. See if I find more I can add from this lot.

Hi Andre

The US ones are interesting.

For instance: why HK marking on tux, evening gown, but Macau on stewardess,papa pilot etc??

I know Tine had a HK and a Macau baby with ice cream

Therefore, do you think there are HK variants for the pilot,stewardess, also?

Martin

Hi Andre

The US ones are interesting.

For instance: why HK marking on tux, evening gown, but Macau on stewardess,papa pilot etc??

I know Tine had a HK and a Macau baby with ice cream

Therefore, do you think there are HK variants for the pilot,stewardess, also?

Martin

That is a good question Martin.

In this lot almost all smurfs are marked HK.

Actually a few of them are Bully marked. Maybe 5 of the about 150 smurfs on the first picture are not HK marked. I would guess that sometimes they used germanmade smurfs when the stock was not big enough or maybe it had to do with production?? We know for a fact that both Sledder and Gardener was german-marked variations sold in US.

But I think the intention was to only use HK smurfs for the US market.

But there are also 2 macau Babies among them.

If you look at this picture with the babies sold in US in 1985, you see that all have the exact same light skyblue paint.

I am pretty sure these were the first ones sold there, and that would also mean that both the baby with teddy and baby with ice lolly was sold in the US with macau-markings.

But if you look at these pictures it is pretty both the baby with teddy and the baby with ice lolly was first marked Hongkong.

So if you look how these smurfs were meant to be sold in the US.

6585 Babysmurf white,pink,blue( 1984(HK))
6590 january Baby w teddy, baby w icecream
6595 january dentist, smurfette flute
6600 april Devil, angel
6615 april Smurfette golfer, basketball
6620 june Baby w blocks, baby w car
6625 june Smurfette gown, smurf tux
6630 august Baby w bowl, baby w butterfly
6635 august Pilot, stewardess

All smurfs of these except the ones that was meant to be sold in August 1985 had Hongkong-markings in the mold in the beginning.

But we also know that already in early 1985 they had changed the markings to macau on the first Babies sold in this limited audition.

So most likely they had stopped with the HK markings in late 1984 and only the molds already made still got that marking??

My guess would be that the last ones can not be found with Macau markings?:-?

Have you seen baby with bowl or baby with butterfly with macau markings Martin?

So this is how the last smurfs looked like when sold in US. Smurfette in gown and smurf in tuxedo was never sold in US according to the SCCI letters.

Notice also the fantastic darker blue paint used on the other smurfs.

I added the devil since that was among about 5 smurfs that was missing in the collection. But I had another HK devil.

The first 2 babies are Macau marked.

A very nice thing that also tells that this is a collection bought during the same time and not during many years is the paint.

I added a few of the other smurfs that was among the last smurfs sold in US going by the articlenumbers. Notice that they used the exact same paint on all smurfs as the ones sold in the limited edition serie. That tells us that all these smurfs were most likely painted during same time.

Among my other hongkongsmurfs we can see many different paint and shades of blue, but not in this collection?

I noticed a thing with the waiter and will get back regarding that tomorrow.

André, I have the baby bowl, marked macau

Great stuff Andre.

That sounds like the sequence of the events with regards the Macau dates etc

Yes, the baby with bowl has macau but the butterfly I have never seen

Did you win ALL these in 1 auction?

Martin

Great stuff Andre.

That sounds like the sequence of the events with regards the Macau dates etc

Yes, the baby with bowl has macau but the butterfly I have never seen

Did you win ALL these in 1 auction?

Martin

Martin, it was probably one of the best auctions I have won.

It was this auction. The seller first did not want to ship the smurfs and only accepted local pickup but luckily he accepted to ship them to Sweden. I asked them a few questions after looking carefully at all the pictures. Since I saw all the historicalsmurfs and many other smurfs I did not have in the auction I am really happy. As they say in the auction, it is a 1984 smurf figurines lot and it has been packed away since the 80s. Looked like the smurfs have never been played with. Fantastic condition on most of them.

http://www.ebay.de/itm/Smurf-figurine-v ... true&rt=nc

And therefore 225 euros for all 200 smurfs was a great price. About 1 euro each?? And they cleaned all smurfs for me before shipping.

André, I have the baby bowl, marked macau

Thanks for that Picture Lia.

I do not Think you can find any traced of a Hongkongmarking on that?

Could you check that Lia?

No, not a trace of hong kong!

Congrats for that great lot!! and thanks for the info!

Lia

No, not a trace of hong kong!

Congrats for that great lot!! and thanks for the info!

Lia

Thanks for checking Lia,

That makes sence.

Regarding the historical smurfs I think there is a chance that the molds are not the same. It could be that not the same molds were used with HK markings and then blocked with Macau. Could be different molds in the beginning but then some of the HK ones were used in Macau also??? Hard to say.

Very well bought, Andre!!!

Well done Andre - fantastic collection in such good condition.

One very interesting thing with the lot is that so many smurfs has very big differences in the colours compared to the ones I have with same markings.

Especially the ones made late. It could have to do with that many of the W Berrie marked ones I have Before, I have got from other countries like France for example. And we know these molds were sold all the way to the late 80s.

So it could be that some of these only were painted 1 year in Hongkong before they stopped using the HK factory??