Blue Cavern

I thought I would just bring to attention some of the different Cottages for anyone who may be interested to know. A lot of people would be aware of these but some beginners may not know so I thought they might find this interesting. When I first started collecting last year I didn't realise that there were that many differences and I didn't know what to look for....I thought the only difference was the coloured roof (red, green, blue) in the old style and of course I was aware of the newer versions that featured 2 different colours on the roof.

I have seperated the cottages into 5 different categories which are:

1. HEART SHAPED WINDOW ON DOOR (old style)

2. DOOR KNOCK (old style)

3. TWO COLOURED ROOFS (new style)

4. SMURFETTE COTTAGES (old & new styles)

5. FAKE COTTAGES

Following will be a report and pics on the 5 different categories so please feel free to comment or suggest any other versions which I am not aware of.

Cheers

Dyar

1 HEART SHAPED WINDOW

This is more of an older style where the window on the door is shaped like a heart. It has featured on all of the Smurfette Cottages (old & new) but has been replaced by on the normal Cottages with the Door Knock style.

According to Der Schlumpf Katalog IV all of these have these characteristics:

ROOF COLOUR: red, green or blue

DOOR COLOUR: brown

DOOR HINGE & WINDOW COLOUR: Grey

(NOTE: As these are all pieces that can be swapped from cottage to cottage, then I am sure they can be seen in any combination but according to the Katalog this is the original combination of colours with the Heart Shaped Window).

Every one of mine with a Heart Shaped Window also seems to have an unpainted Butterfly in the roof....I am guessing this is the way they were manufactured.

Here are the pics:

2 DOOR KNOCKS

These ones are different because instead of the Heart Shaped Window they have an oval shaped window with curtains covering the sides of the oval.

Again according to the Katalog there are 3 different variations although I have only seen 2 which are:

A:

ROOF COLOUR: red, green or blue

DOOR COLOUR & WINDOWS: Grey

DOOR HINGE: Brown

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B:

ROOF COLOUR: dark red, dark green or dark blue

DOOR COLOUR: Brown

DOOR HINGE & WINDOWS: Grey


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C:

ROOF COLOUR: red, green or blue

DOOR COLOUR & DOOR HINGE: Grey

I do not have the 3rd variation in my collection although if I wanted to I could just swap the pieces over to achieve it if I wanted to....that's why I have pretty much put these into a category together.

Here are the pics of example A, example B, and then 3 variations of Green (example B) that have different shades of green in the roof and different shades of brown in the doors. Perhaps these were swapped but we will probably never know for sure when it comes to these cottages.

2 Door knock, grey door, brown hinge


2(b) Door knock, door brown, hinge grey (greens)


2(b) Door knock, door brown, hinge grey (blue)

3 TWO COLOURED ROOFS

These versions are the ones that you see in the shop now. There are actually 3 with the Smurfette Cottage but I will include the Smurfette ones seperately.

These ones have 2 different coloured roofs and the windows and doors are dark brown. They have the oval shaped windows with curtains and door knock but the leaves on the sides of the door hinge are painted which was only previously found on Smurfette Cottages.

Here is a pic

4 SMURFETTE COTTAGES

There are 3 different versions of the Smurfette Cottages which interesting enough all come with the Heart Shaped Window and the 2 different tones in the roof. These all have the leaves on the side of the door hinge painted.

There is an old version, newer version of the old version & a new version with the two colours on the roof.

The first pic will show the 2 old styles of the Smurfette House (older version on the left) which are pretty much the same except the older version has a stronger pink on the roof and a darker purple on the door hinge and windows whereas the newer version of this style seemed to have a softer faint purple tone to the roof with the same faint light purple on the door hinge and windows.



The 2nd pic shows the newer version has much stronger colours with the 2 colours on the roof (dark purple & a dark red), brown on the door, door hinge and windows and a yellow butterfly whereas the other 2 had a butterfly that matched the shades in their roof more. The curtains are painted yellow on the new version whereas they were white in the other two.



I personally prefer the older style colours to the newer one.

Here are the pics

5 FAKE COTTAGES (ones that seperate)

Finally the Fakes. As you would know I am not an expert here as it is Attom's department although I do have one fake. I am hoping Attom can contribute some of the fake ones that he has in his collection as there are some really nice looking ones..especially that one with the snail...I really want one of those.

Anyway the fake I have has a few differences and I believe there are at least 2 variations of these particular fake cottages. This is definately a different style for a few reasons but the main 2 are that the base seperates from the top half of the actual house bit (see photo).

The other main difference is the roof actually locks onto the house better than the authentic ones so that you can actually hold the house upside down by the roof and the actual house bit will not hit the ground...I actually quite like that about these ones.

The roofs are all one colour and so is the butterfly.

Going on the colours (purple & pink) and the fact it has a heart shaped window, I guess you could call this one a fake Smurfette's Cottage.

Hopefully Attom can show us any fake cottages he has as they would be interesting to see the different styles out there on ebay.

Here are the pics of this particular fake cottage:

Here are some of pics of the different boxes for the cottages.





Dyar

NICE info!!!

you should do your own Katalog!! dyar!!

Katalog V should include infos from this exceptionally informative site.
Good knowledge. Very interesting Bravo to all .
John

Catalogue IV is indeed sadly lacking in the description of the accessories and houses and so. Very sketchy and rapidly...

I have yet another minor colour variation of cottage 2b, green roof and brown door. This is a very very dark brown, and I don't think it's because of the photo, the other colours look correct.

Very cool Dyar! Thanks for that info: I did not realise there was so many different ones!

I have quite a few in my village now: I need to check what I have!!!

Cheers,

David

he dyar very great info.
I never knew their were so many cottages
I knew about the red, blue and green and smurfette ones but the other I,ve never seen.
Cool
actually how about the great houses, i know their is one with a red roof and a green one and afcourse the newest but are their also others.

TYK(Teun)

Hey Dyar!

notice these variations of the large mushroom house

http://cgi.msn.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dl ... 5945090263

Excellent info Dyar, dare I say it..... you are becoming quite a teacher!

I know very little real info on the cottages as I have never really looked into them so this info you have posted here is absolutely brilliant. Thank You.

Great info Dyar, your pictures are always so perfectly clear, how do you manage that?

I've made this a sticky as well so it doesn't get lost, hope this is ok!

Thanks for the kind words everyone and no probs with it being a sticky as then we can add or alter info as I or anyone else learns more.

Those are great houses Attom in that auction...I don't have the dark red version and would love to get one.

Cheers

Dyar

nice to see someone else thats noticed door frame colours , and as for the fake cottage wow not seen anything like that before will be aware of them ones thanks

Dyar, you know I love to look out for variations and other versions. I think I have found a variation on the Smurfette house: a two colour roof with purple and white! There's a chance it's because of a bad picture, but I don't think so...

I am not sure whether that is a different one or not...it looks different though. I know the item Sven was on recently with the 3 big houses and the 2 Smurfette houses that there was a variation on the Smurfette houses...I think the roof and the doors were different.

Dyar