Blue Cavern

Hi guys

I though it might be interesting to have a discussion about how we all value smurfs or put differently, how we decide how much we want to pay, especially on Ebay.

Obviously it is different if you are buying from an online shop or even a real shop for that matter or if you are at a smurf fair. The seller gives a price and you decide whether to buy or not so that is relatively straightforward.

But how do you decide how much you are willing to pay for an item on Ebay or what would your answer be if someone asked you how much a particular smurf is worth?

Up until a few years ago I would have thought most people would rely completely on the various katalogs that had been published. (I don't even want to think about how it was done before these were available in 1995!) Since Ebay though and the birth of the internet with various price guides and shops with values it does seem to have thrown a completely different light on it all.

Obviously it has to be down to normal market trends, the harder an item is to find, the more expensive it will be to buy and although I am sure we have all seen anomalies, either an item that sold for way more than what could be considered normal or indeed an item which sold at an absolutely bargain price, personally I find it extremely interesting to see how much smurfs sell for and the patterns of values that occur.

I am sure the DSK and the KMS katalogues certainly have some bearing over prices and I am also sure that there are collectors out there who never refer to anything, just pay what they want (or can afford at the time). There are also collectors who are after a particular item so much that they are willing to pay "whatever" it takes at the time to get it and again, other collectors who would never pay what they consider "book value" and search out the bargain every time.

The very nature of smurfs as a collectible means that values can vary considerably, literally from a few pence to thousands so how do we all make the decisions? Do you always check the guides? Do you try and remember how much you saw the last one sell for on Ebay? Do you just hope that your credit card isn't in the red yet? Do you have an upper limit that you would never go over? (Mine was £1 per smurf when I started! ) Do you ask your partner / dog / neighbour / postman etc. how much you should pay?



I think for me personally it is a bit of them all. I tend to check the DSK after I have won (safer this way), I also try and keep a watch on how much things are selling for on Ebay and more often than not, I am dependant on how much spare cash I have. I am also definitely a bargain hunter and quite often have top limit in my head for a particular item and will not go over that no matter what, I'll just wait for another one to come along as they always do.

Hi, Rachel!!!!!Interesting discussion!!!!

I think each collector has his own rules to spend his money in smurfs...It would be wonderful to find all the smurfs in our wanted smurfs as bargains, but this is not possible...How to decide the amount we are well disposed to pay?
Things I consider when I am watching a smurf on ebay:

1.- how much money I have recently spent on smurfs
2.- if this smurf is really rare or simply I have not in my collection because of differnet reasons
3.- if this smurf is not common to see on ebay
4.- who is bidding on it
5.- which is the price appearing in catalogues
6.- THE SELLER is very important...If it is a very rare smurf, I have a look on last smurfs he has sold/bought and I have an idea who I am dealing with
7.- I ask some smurfer friends what they think of the price to pay


If I am watching a cheap smurf, I try to buy it with minimal shipment costs; if it is a high shipment, I don´t buy; if it is a rare one, simply I don´t consider the shipment...The prices of catalogues are not always a good guide...When I decide to go for a smurf on ebay, I decide the highest amount I will pay...If the highest bid is for example 5 euros, and I think this smurf must be on my collection, I wait until last minute and directly put 50 euros...It´s difficult someone overbids to me...If this happens, I have no time to introduce a new amount, so I don´t spend more money that I thought

Last months I have seen hundreds of homemade/repainted rare smurfs: bundesliga, kickers, school cones, musiciens with blue clothes...that I have decided not to buy expensives smurfs on ebay...We all know some fakers: m...., sm..., sm...The problem is not to ignore them...The problem is that they are "inundating" the market with fakes and it´s impossible to follow all of them...I am sure there are lots of fakes in impressive collections and the owner doesn´t know it...For this reason I only buy smurfs from wellknown collectors or sellers...I don´t want to risk my money

Buying in shops is a thing I had done several times because the overall quality is better and also buying a bigger lot will lower the price ....lower than the price on ebay

Yes the price I would pay is really between
a) as cheap as possible and
b) I would pay every sum is needed to get them.
But normally I searching through whole ebay and only buy the cheaper ones. Especially promo smurfs are so many around so and it is not needed to pay hundred and hundred Euros for the rare one

After two years of watching Ebay I know which smurfs are common and which one are the rare ones.... So a Fix and Foix is not so rare compared e.g. the "Morell Brille" so I would not spent more than 60 Euros for a Fix and Foxi because the price is overestimated.

Sometimes I refer on the DSK for the price I simply half the price for all smurfs and then you know price for the smurf in best condition
The KMS is a fair price guide for promo smurfs and I think it is still the best source for that

@pitufo
at the moment if I looking at the Bundesliga smurfs I would say about 30% of Bundesliga smurfs are fakes. If you want you can ask me if you are not sure about authenticity

What a great discussion, Rachel.

Sometimes I refer on the DSK for the price I simply half the price for all smurfs and then you know price for the smurf in best condition

This is exactly what I do. I halve the price in the DSK and try to win it for about that. Sometimes I do a search on ebay for completed items and see how much they have been going for in the past. I also add a little or take a little depending on the condition.

Then of course there are the times when you go..."hell I want that smurf cos its the last one I need to complete the normals/supers/set and I don't care how much I pay!"

Hi!

I'm not sure if I do things differently , but I pay what ever it takes to get
the smurf I want. I do have limits, but If I see a rare smurf , which I mostly collect, I have to decide right away to buy it. the smurfs I collect
are not seen often so chances are in the Now.

I know I have spent probably a ton more on them this way, but it seems
that someone or others are usually bidding as well or want the same item. 90% of the items I buy are on Ebay.

I rarely think of value or what they are worth for resale, as I know that
I have so many fakes, that is unlikely that I will make a profit if I sell them all, as I could flood the market with them then.

its more about owning them for myself.

I suppose I am lucky I can afford it, where years ago I wouldn't be able to, and off course rarely get items I want.

for me its a challange to find hard/odd and unusual ones, almost
like a hunt or a challange and exciting when I see a smurf that most have not seen before.
I started collecting this way, as I wanted the smurfs no one wanted, and
hopefully give them value in some way to others and collect something
that was different then the mass collectors.

which made it more difficult and expensive eventually as now I have alot of competition.

besides its a ton of fun! they are small and easy to store, and feeds my
addictions for collecting something.

Really interesting answers so far, Thanks guys. It is great hearing about our different perspectives.

When I decide to go for a smurf on ebay, I decide the highest amount I will pay...If the highest bid is for example 5 euros, and I think this smurf must be on my collection, I wait until last minute and directly put 50 euros...It´s difficult someone overbids to me...If this happens, I have no time to introduce a new amount, so I don´t spend more money that I thought

I do exactly the same Joaquin, with the attitude, some you win, some you lose.

Mind you, a few times the computer has done very bad things and I end up shouting or even worse, I forget and miss the end by a few seconds!

After two years of watching Ebay I know which smurfs are common and which one are the rare ones.... So a Fix and Foix is not so rare compared e.g. the "Morell Brille" so I would not spent more than 60 Euros for a Fix and Foxi because the price is overestimated.

Hi Cheesy, yes, by watching Ebay it is possible to get an idea about just how rare something is. I would add though with the Fix Foxi smurfs, the value has dropped a huge amount just in the last couple of years because there was a very big find of them in Finland. Before this, the price of them was much closer to the DSK value and I am sure, in the future, the values of this smurf will go up again. This has happened in the past with the #1 Grad smurf after a few boxes of them were found, the prices dropped so you could pick them up very cheaply but now the prices are rising again.

As I'm still collecting bog-standard smurfs I buy them directly from a seller as I find it easier that way & know that I'm not being palmed off with rubbish.

The only smurfs I ever bought from ebay were 2 complete sets of the McDonalds pirates plus 2 extra (18 smurfs plus accessories altogether) for which I was willing to pay €3 per smurf, in other words €54 for the lot as I really wanted this set & I could have sold the doubles afterwards (which I haven't done though ). As it happens, no-one bid for this lot so I won the auction & only had to pay €1,99!! I pitied the seller to be honest as she was completely out-of-pocket. Bad luck for her, good look for me though

Hi Rachel,

I have so far tried to get all my normal smurfs for around £2 or less and the Supers between £2 - £5 so generally these have been the max. amounts I've gone to.

I am pretty much at the point now where the smurfs I want are not going to be available at these prices so I will be guided by the amounts I have seen them sell for previously on e-bay

I don't think I would purchase any single smurf on e-bay for over £25 unless I knew the seller well enough. Over this amount I would rather buy from a seller face to face at a fair, even if it meant paying more for it.

The only time I would pay whatever it took to get (within reason) would be for Budesliga soccer players - and I very rarely see these on e-bay anyway, and the ones I do see I am not sure of

I am never too disappointed if I do not win on e-bay as like you say, just wait for the next one to come along

I am afraid I am pretty simple....how much I spend depends on the money I have available....if I have a bit more money I have been known to overspend... because I didn't ask how much about the value of a smurf or smurf lot.. Bidding in the last minute has never really worked for me...it is always dangerous when I watch an auction for the last five minutes, as I am very competitive when I want something and I have driven bids up and ended up overspending way more than I wanted...and I was only excited to have won that smurf

I am now more interested in rarer smurfs like promos, raws or CNTs..and probably will spend more on a single smurf from now on...however, whenever I am not sure about how much to spend on one particular smurf nowadays, I do ask others for their opinions which has helped me a lot in no longer overspending so much...

I get my smurfs mostly off ebay, because there aren't any smurfs to be had around here..however, I do agree with everybody, that I will only buy really rare smurfs from reputable sellers (like when a forum member puts up an auction) as I am not interested in purchasing home made fakes at the moment

I tended to have a threshold that $5 was a good deal for any smurf outside the golden fifty. $10 was expensive. $20 was out of my price range. If buying a multi-smurf lot, I tried to calculate in my head the cost of each smurf based on dividing the number of smurfs I wanted in the lot by the auction price and shipping.

I don't have access to the DSK catalog, so I acquired my price estimate for each smurf by comparing prices from the American online sellers and factoring in the general trend on ebay.

My price limit, at first firmly stopped at $10, but was beginning to creep upwards.

This might have been what turned me off of vintage collecting--the smurfs I didn't have were growing so expensive and so fiercely fought for on ebay that the fun was fading. Without fail, though, I buy the eight new ones every year.

I have been fairly flexible. I tend to use the DSK as a basis for determing the maximum that I would want to pay, but it generally depends on how much money I have available and how much I want the smurf. I have paid over the odds for a few smurfs / sockles that I really wanted. At the moment I'm not really buying any and only picking up bargains!

I tend to only look at the dsk when it is a less comon smurf that I am interested in and then I weigh in how much I am willing to spend. My main factors on what to spend and what to spend it on is do I need this to complete a set and how much money I have. If for example I need only one of somehting and my set is complete I will spend way more than what the item is worth simply because I tend to be impatiant with waiting to complete something, I know I spent too much on some things but the statisfaction of getting a smurf item you really wanted pays for itself.
It will be interesting to see the smurf market in a year or so from now with the movie comeing out, over the years I have noticed the value on ebay go up as more and more collectors are after smurfs, it's nice to see the interest in smurfs go up.


gerda

It will be interesting to see the smurf market in a year or so from now with the movie comeing out

I also think it will be interesting to see just how many thousands of people still have smurfs in their attic that they have forgotten about for years, didn't know were still collectable etc., hope these movies generate a whole new smurfy buzz and that someone somewhere decides new super smurfs are needed

More very interesting answers guys, Thanks for your opinions.

It will be interesting to see the smurf market in a year or so from now with the movie comeing out

I also think it will be interesting to see just how many thousands of people still have smurfs in their attic that they have forgotten about for years, didn't know were still collectable etc., hope these movies generate a whole new smurfy buzz and that someone somewhere decides new super smurfs are needed

I agree Gerda and Sue completely, I think the release of the movie is going to be very interesting indeed. I do believe there are still many people out there who have boxes of smurfs in their attics and hopefully, either they will decide to send the little guys to a new home or get back into collecting them again. I am guessing this trend has already started in a way just judging by how many smurfs are now being sold on Ebay compared to a few years ago but then again, many of these are being sold seperately by collectors or deals so maybe we will see an influx of big lots.

I agree Gerda and Sue completely, I think the release of the movie is going to be very interesting indeed. I do believe there are still many people out there who have boxes of smurfs in their attics and hopefully, either they will decide to send the little guys to a new home or get back into collecting them again. I am guessing this trend has already started in a way just judging by how many smurfs are now being sold on Ebay compared to a few years ago but then again, many of these are being sold seperately by collectors or deals so maybe we will see an influx of big lots.

I hate to sound macabre, but as we start dying off in the next 30 years, you should see more big lots roll in from estate sales.

Tip to very young collectors: Be patient.......

I agree Gerda and Sue completely, I think the release of the movie is going to be very interesting indeed. I do believe there are still many people out there who have boxes of smurfs in their attics and hopefully, either they will decide to send the little guys to a new home or get back into collecting them again. I am guessing this trend has already started in a way just judging by how many smurfs are now being sold on Ebay compared to a few years ago but then again, many of these are being sold seperately by collectors or deals so maybe we will see an influx of big lots.

I hate to sound macabre, but as we start dying off in the next 30 years, you should see more big lots roll in from estate sales.

Tip to very young collectors: Be patient.......

I guess that is one way to look at it, I already promised my collection to Sean who was more than happy to know he will get it once mommy died, did not seem to bother him in the least knowing I would no longer be around


gerda

Well, he'll always have the smurfs to remember you by

Glad to see you are teaching your sons to have the right priorities.. and are succeeding with at least one of them

I agree Gerda and Sue completely, I think the release of the movie is going to be very interesting indeed. I do believe there are still many people out there who have boxes of smurfs in their attics and hopefully, either they will decide to send the little guys to a new home or get back into collecting them again.

I am sure this will happen in Spain: spanish attics keep thousands of smurfy tresures!!!!!!!!!!!We will see lots of Cnts, all the bullfighters, all kind of spanish...I suggest all of you to learn spanish...Spain will be the paradise of smurfs collectors!!!!!!!!!

Interesting way of looking at it Tim.

I am sure this will happen in Spain: spanish attics keep thousands of smurfy tresures!!!!!!!!!!!We will see lots of Cnts, all the bullfighters, all kind of spanish...I suggest all of you to learn spanish...Spain will be the paradise of smurfs collectors!!!!!!!!!

LOL

Joaquin, you have been dreaming again haven't you!

Yes Rachel!!!!!!!!!I am always dreaming!!!!!!!!But it´s a serious thing: all of you must learn spanish!!!!!!