Blue Cavern

Hi,

I moved into a house and found this in the cellar!!

The lady who lived in my house was from the Netherlands and moved to the UK in the sixties. It had various 1960's Dutch coins in it so I guess it must date from that time.

It's a Papa Smurf, (Spaar Smurf' in Dutch), painted on glass and in a wooden frame. The top of the frame has a slot so that money can be 'posted' behind Papa.

It appears genuine as it has '(C) Sepp and Payo' on Papa's foot.

I've not had any joy finding any reference to it anywhere.

Can anyone tell me anything about it?

Thanks Z

Hi Z, welcome aboard.

Firstly, I hope you don't mind, I made your pic slightly smaller just to make it easier to see.

You have a very nice smurfy item there and as you mentioned it has markings so I would also assume it was a licnsed product. I have never seen anything like this before, certainly not a smurf one anyone.

I won't show my hubby though as he loves these coin slot thingies, I am sure he can sit and watch for hours dropping coins in and then emptying them out again.

Did you find any other smurfs or smurfy items?

SEPP did the licensing of most Smurf items in teh seventies adn early eighties (a bit like IMPS does now). I think this is a mid-seventies item, in Dutch of course. I have seen it once or twice before but don't know anything else about it.
SEPP did the licensing for many Dupuis comic figures (like Boule & Bill), but I don't know if they were a true Dupuis company or just had a large contract with them.

Oh, and of course! Forgotten that in the excitement

Nice info Fram, I had always wanted to know where SEPP came into it. It was in my original copyright statement for my website but I removed it at the request of IMPS some time ago.

Wow !!

I'm amazed how many replies I've had in just a few hours !!

Yes.... several more Smurf items. I should have said I found a 'timecapsule' dated 22nd May 1993. So not only were there items from the Netherlands from the '60s there were things right up to the 'Evening Standard' when the Queen Mum had a 1 hour operation to remove a fishbone and TONS of articles abouy the DJ Pat Sharpe, (schoolgirl crush springs to mind!). There's everything from Brownie guidebooks, Cup-A-Soups, TV guides, 'pop' badges right the way though to about around 50 Smurf related items. I've identified everything except the moneybox !!

Hi Z

That's a really nice item you have there and I have never seen it before so thanks for sharing the image with us. It must of been cool to see that in the house....when I moved into my current address the only thing unexpected on the wall was a spider.....I'll take one of those Money Slot thingies over a spider anyday.

Dyar

Oooh there were PLENTY of creepy crawlies too !!

Admittedly the timecapsule, (well a big cardboard box with 'timecapsule' written on it to be precise !), was a real surprise. I've got a few of the more unusual Smurfs out and have them on display...but the rest I've put back for posterity.


The moneybox was like winning the lottery, (well almost ! ).

I've given 'Spaar' a really careful clean and he's now proudly on display along with a healthy supply of pennies to keep him company!!

Wow Z, I would love to find a time capsule.

It must have been very exciting opening it, ever since they buried one on Blue Peter (a kids TV programme) I have been interested in them. We made one up when we were in school but I can't remember where we hid it, which is a bit of a shame as I now teach there.