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.
Attom 
). 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 
- and I very rarely see these on e-bay anyway, and the ones I do see I am not sure of 
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 
Maureen 
