Blue Cavern

I thought I start a new thread regarding these because I spread the answers in different threads and I believe many collectors are intrested in the order these were released and which are possible to find.

Dispite was is written in the Bully museum catalogue. This I believe is correct releaseorder for the first 22 Bully smurfs between 1973 and 1976.

These smurfs Bully numbered 1010/1 and in order they released them to 1010/22. The Bullyposter which show these years are from 1976.

And it is only among these smurfs you can find Bully smurfs without any marking, with only Peyo C marking or with Handwritten Bully marking.
All these are also possible to find in the soft material.

Bully also released Smurfette, Gargamel, Johan and Pewitt with handwritten Bully during these years.

There are 2 early Bullysmurfs I don´t have. The one with the tongue out and the Bullyversion of the digger. I put a new hongkongsmurf instead of the old form with tongue out, because they look the same I believe.

Here are number 1010/1 to 1010/10.
With the old form under and new form on top.

Number 1010/11 to 1010/22 with the old for on top instead.

And if I understood Martin correct all these smurfs are Schleichmolds Bully only used. So from these first smurfs we can´t find any with Bully markings??

Except for Bully´s own molds for Smurfette and Astro.

But who made the bluematerial Papa, which is very soft and has only Peyo C on arm?

I also have Spy and prisoner which are softer and seems early. Prisoner without marking. Spy has Peyo on the heel, not under foot.

Gargamel has number 1011/1, Johan 1011/2, Pewitt 1011/3.
The house Bully numbered 1011/H. And these are also marked Bully. For those who have not checked even the house has handetched Peyo under. And it seems they used this only until this year.

HI Andre,
very interesting reading

If you ever get a hold of another poster like this, ..I'd be very interested in it

I also think there are Bully catalogs, I wonder if there were any back then and if anybody has those. I'd say they should help as well.

According to this website from Bullyland, they started producing toys in 1973 which is exactly when the Bully smurfs first apparently appeared.

http://www.bullyland.de/index.php?optio ... Itemid=201

Wasn't there some kind family connection between Schleich and Bully..that would explain why both companies used each other molds, I think

Maureen,

I have 2 posters from 1977 and I only need one.
The posters from 1976 and 1978 I only have one of each.

The only real smurfs on the poster are these ones in the Bully display mushroom. But here you can see some of them in the old form. You can also see that the traveller had a long stick in the beginning.
And some colours.

I have 2 handetched travellersmurfs, both with long sticks, but different.

The only one I am sure have not been switched is the one with the stick with bag which is flat under.

A very interesting post as ever André. Thanks for all of the effort you put into putting the information together.

It's interesting to see the difference between the sticks on those travellers.

Maybe Tojo can translate this for us??

I don´t know if it has something to do with the connection between Bully and Schleich. But Klaus Volkmar started Bully and if Herrn Schleich means Friedrich Schleich, who started Schleich. Then this could mean that the "creator" of Bully married the daughter of the "creator" of Schleich.

But my german is not that good, so I could have mixed everything up.

"Nachdem Volkmar Klaus aus Spraitbach (ca. 10 km von hier) Herrn Schleichs Tochter geheiratet hatte und angeblich Schlümpfe ohne Peyo-Lizenz produzierte, gab es mächtig Streit mit dem Schwiegervater aus Herlikofen (ca. 6 km von hier aber in entgegengesetzter Richtung). Wohl auch mit Peyo, der sich über mangelnde Werbung durch einen Herrn Kauka aus Grünwald (weit südlich von hier) aber nicht beschweren konnte, auch wenn nur die Bully-Schlümpfe in Kaukas Produkten beworben wurden.

Bully versuchte die entstandene Lücke zu schließen indem er sich die Disney-Lizenzen sicherte und als Schlümpfe-Nachfolger die SNIKS produzierte.

Jede Menge Bully-Figuren wurden alljährlich werbewirksam von den Festwägen des Gmünder Faschingsumzugs (2 km von hier) ins Publikum geworfen. Darunter viele Schlümpfe und Sniks, oft unbemalt oder in den falschen Farben.

Bullys Gummimischungen waren weicher als die von Schleich und die ersten Schlümpfe waren komplett ohne jeglichen Copyright-Vermerk. Einen hab ich noch, den roten "Swoof" aus Astronautenschlumpf.

Irgendwann schien es aber eine Einigung gegeben zu haben, da Schleich die meisten Bully-Schlümpfe nachproduzierte. Wenn ich mich recht entsinne war der Bully-Astronautenschlumpf mit dem Goldfischglas-Helm nicht dabei da Schleich bereits eine ähnliche Figur im Sortiment hatte."

I read somewhere that Bully had the exclusive rights for the sales of the smurfs in W. Germany, Scandinavian countries and Canada for a time.

If this is true and it was during the time Schleich started with smurfs again, they could have been working together. And then Bully could have sold Schleich smurfs, Schleich started making again 1977 and with the Schleichmarking in these countries. And maybe Schleich sold Bully smurfs in other countries where Schleich had these rights????

André, the translation is,more or less, like this:

After Klaus Volkmar from Sraitbach ( 10 kms from here) had married the daughter of Mr.Schleich, and ( according to some people).produced smurfs without peyo markings, there was a lot of arguing with the father-in-law from Herlikhofen ( 6 kms from here,but in the opposite direction) Also with Peyo, who, however, could not complain about not enough marketing by Mr. Kauka from Grünwald ( far south from here) even if only the Bully smurfs were promoted in Kauka`s products.
Bully tried to fill the gap by getting the license for Disney and produced the sniks as successors of the smurfs.
Lots of Bully figures were used for promotional targetss and during the annual event of the Gmünder Carneval, many of these figures were thrown in the audience. Amongst them, many smurfs and sniks, often unpainted or in the wrong colors.
Bully gummimixtures were softer then the Schleich ones and the First smurfs were totally without any form of copyright marking. I still have one of them, the red “Swoof” from the Astrosmurf.
Somehow, however, there seemed to have been an agreement, because Schleich reproduced most of the Bully smurfs. When I remember correctly, the Astro with Goldfish helmet was not included, because Schleich already had such a figure in their assortment.

Thanks Lia,

I am just reading SCCI newsletter 45. And there you can read the history.

It says like this: In 1978/79 a lawsuit was brought by Peyo against Bully, to terminate his contract with them to produce smurf figurines. Bully had exclusive sales of the smurfs in West Germany, Scandinavia and in Canada. The first court battle was lost by Peyo.
In the meantime Schleich was continuing production of smurfs in many other european contries, and started with USA, Japan, Australia, South africa etc.
Bullys contract with Peyo expired 31 december 1979. After this Schleich was the sole manufacturer and seller.

So this means if Schleich wanted to sell smurfs in W. Germany, Scandinavia or Canada they had to go through Bully and that is why the new smurfs Schleich made between 1977 and 1980 was sold by Bully also.

Very very interesting......many thanks for this guys

I agree with Lia's translation..except for this part

Nachdem Volkmar Klaus aus Spraitbach (ca. 10 km von hier) Herrn Schleichs Tochter geheiratet hatte und angeblich Schlümpfe ohne Peyo-Lizenz produzierte,

the bolded part says that Bully produced the smurfs without any license from Peyo which would explain why the first Bully smurfs were without markings or barely readable markings

Great research, Andre...this certainly explains a lot..and fits perfectly with your theory

I agree Maureen!

André worked like a scientist and discovered a lot of good info for all of us

Lia

I need some days (because of my english ) to understand and order all the info about Bully smurfs..Thanks André!!!!!!

Ps: I am trying to do a similar work about real cnts smurfs (year of production, which ones were really made for the same industry), but it is becoming a hard work

Another thing regarding the early Bully smurfs are the ones made for Waldbaur. You have written about this in many threads and I have read them. Most of the smurfs listed seems to be based on the last SCCI letter from 1998???, in which they seems to have been adding all raw smurfs with painted parts???

In the Bully catalogue it says according to Tojo that these Waldbauers are from 1984, but as we have shown the years in this catalogue regarding the smurfs are completly wrong. Maybe it was a disneycollector and not a smurfscollector who wrote it??

There are a couple of things that is strange.

The waldbauersmurfs I have are soft and the same size as the old bullyfoms. Not new form and hard and with printed bullymarkings like the white Shy smurf on the picture( taller smurf).
And it seems Bully made these soft smurfs in early and mid 70s.
In SCCI letter from 1989 it is written that 6 smurfs were sold in the waldbaurbox and they were made in the early and mid 70s.
To me this seems very correct.

One more thing Klaus Volkmar made these soft smurfs between 73 and 76 in Spraitbuch.
Very near Spraitbuch is Stuttgart, where Waldbaur made their choklate.
And this factory was closed 1976/77 according to this:
"1976 wurden die Marken des Unternehmens Waldbaur vom Kölner Schokoladenkonzern Stollwerck übernommen, die Produktion am Standort Stuttgart 1977 eingestellt, 700 Mitarbeiter wurden entlassen."

So I guess that in the waldbauer boxes goes only Bully´s own molds like the smurfs shown on the boxes in many threads and the soft versions.

On the boxes are only the smurfmolds Bully made 1975. Bully numbered them 12,13,14,15,16,17.

Could it be that these Waldbaur boxes were sold 1975 and Bully made the soft smurfs for them to their "town-neighbour"??

Off course all the other painted raw smurfs was( or could have been) made by Bully, but my guess is that they were not sold in this box.

I think we should look at the material rather than the painting??

What do you think?

Here is the picture of the box, which Lia added in another thread.
And as you see it is only the smurfs Bully made 1975 with numbers 1010/12 to 1010/17.

Wouldn´t you say that is strange that only these smurfs would be on the box if it was released some other year??

And if you take the material, marking, location of Bully´s( Klaus Volkmar) "factory" and Waldbaur location. And that Waldbaur closed the factory for choklate in Stuttgart 1976/77.

My only conclusion of this is that only the 6 smurfs, of softer material, of Bully´s molds and from 1975 are the "real" Waldbaur smurfs. And that the box was sold 1975 or maybe 1976.

What is your guess?????