[Smurfysmurf]

I know we have this post on a regular basis...but we also have new members on a regular basis, so it's always fun to share this, me thinks

How did it all start for you?...Smurf collecting, I mean
And for how long have you been doing it? ...Again...I mean smurf collecting

[lobo]

It all started thirty-something years ago with a catalan comic of smurfs "la flauta dels sis barrufets" which was the comig out of the smurfs.

And after that, my first smurf was a fake 2.0077 with PAT as marking that I already keep as one of my favourite smurfs .
Since then I haven´t been able to stop loving our little friends and lately I´ve started to make my own smurfs as some of you already know.

[bwalters]

For me it was around 30 years ago also. My stepdaughter and I walked to a small mall that had a Halmark store. She was six and saw the Smurf display. And said nothing more than they were cute. I though so also and bought her a couple. I never let her play with them. But a couple of things got broken Windmill vane and the lift truck. At some point my wife and stepkids lost intrest in them. I lugged them around for about 15 years and then rediscovered them in 1998 when I got a computer and started collecting again. When I divorced my wife I moved out of the house and left the smurfs. When I got the house back a year later they were still there.

[Pitufo]

Here you are my story again...

My relation with the smurfs is old,old...I´m going to tell you...

When I was eight years old, Smurfs began to appear in Spanish Tv, and my parents regale to me and my twin brother ten smurfs...The first one I saw when I opened the box with the present was Nr 20009, smurf with a drum...I can´t forget it...From this day, my father carried us every saturday to Sevilla to buy some smurfs. My brother got bored, but I continued...I played everyday with my little blue imps( because of this, some of them are damaged...but never mind)....... I had about 180 smurfs in my collection...and suddenly Smurfs were not at the stores, and not at TV...My parents usually went to Holland, Belgium, Swizerland, and Germany, and they always brought to me smurfs...But it was so difficult to them to find smurfs for me, and to remember which ones I had...My collection stopped

Years and years passed, I loved smurfs but it was impossible to find new smurfs in Spain...I grew, I went to the secondary school and my sisters began to give birth a lot of childs...They liked smurfs and they always wanted to touch them. So I decided to put them in a cupboard...one year, two years, three years...more and more...

In 1992 I began Chemistry in the university, and suddenly somebody spoke to me about smurfs....I decided to take out them, and my collection continued again...In my travels, I looked for smurfs...Internet appeared...I got my first job as a teacher of Chemistry and Physics, and I began to spent money in one of the things I loved more: SSSSSMMMUUUURFFFFSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But my real passion about smurfs began again at PASSION 2006!!!!It was incredible to meet personally people with the same passion than yours: smurfs...

As most of you know, I have not stopped

[André]

Me and my brother collected smurfs when they started showing up in the toystores in our town in the 70s. We bought every different smurfs we could get and built villages with cottages. Then we "grew up" and got other intrests. But the big box with smurfs stayed at my parents.

And when I got my children they always played with these smurfs when we visited my parents. So I started collecting again about 10 years ago.
Because both my brothers and sisters children also always played with these smurfs at my parents house they didn´t look that good anymore and a lot of parts were missing. But it is toys and all the children have had great fun with these smurfs so I don´t mind that at all.

So you can say I had to start from the scratch again.

/André

[Ritter_Schlumpfenherz]

I have been collecting smurfs for twenty-six years. When I was three years old, my late Granny Anni gave me "Gold Smurf" as a present. I still remember her saying: "You're just as tiny and precious as this smurf is." Well, it was a bit like "love at first sight", for I couldn't resist that charming smile of the tiny blue figurine, thus my granny used to bring a smurf everytime, she was visiting our place. Only one year later, I had forty smurfs to call my own. I went to the video shop with my dad and rent some smurf videos as well, before the series would be re-run on German tv for the very first time in 1987 or 1988. Shortly I had been given my very first pocket money at the age of six or seven years, I started to look out for smurfs on fleamarkets and toy shops. I used wrote many letters to Nikolaus and the Christkind asking for smurfs as gifts for "Niklas' day" and Christmas as well. Meanwhile I have collected more than 2500 smurf items so far, with the majority representing normal smurfs and I still can't stop collecting them.

[SmurfingH]

I have been collecting smurfs for twenty-six years.

Dominique, I didn't think you were old enough to be collecting for that long!

I fell in love with smurfs in the 70s when they were available at National petrol stations. My brother and I collected as many as we could and we loved to play with them. I put an H on all my smurfs so they wouldn't get confused with Ken's! The marks are still there but I won't take them off because they're a part of my history. On the whole we were careful with our smurfs and apart from needing a good clean they're in good condition. Sadly, in the 80s smurfs disappeared from the garages and toy shops and so we stopped collecting. We also "grew up", or Ken did. A few years ago Mum and Dad were in Venice and saw smurfs. Mum bought me the computer smurf which has been sitting on my computer ever since. Sadly I didn't keep the box. Last year my brother got married in Australia but I couldn't go. In January I started looking on ebay and found the bride and groom smurfs. Well, I had to have those! Then I found an Indian Smurfette and then this forum and then I was truly hooked!

Fortunately for me, my brother isn't interested in his smurfs so my original collection consisted of 170 plus smurfs and super smurfs, 1 large smurf house and 2 cottages (the original blue one and Smurfette's original pink one), and 5 playsets - 2 fence playsets, 2 gate playsets and 1 garden furniture playset. In the last year my collection has exploded to nearly 700 smurfs and supersmurfs, 55 fakes, lots of houses and playsets and tons of other stuff!! I've learnt so much and made so many friends and I consider myself a very lucky girl!

[Ritter_Schlumpfenherz]

Dominique, I didn't think you were old enough to be collecting for that long!

According to my parents, I prefered Lego, toy cars and smurfs over any baby puppet and Barbie dolls, I had.

[agent smurf]

Interesting thread Moey.

I couldn't buy a clockwork smurfette homemade figurine from a fellow smurf collector for some reason, I think I've seen her on your website so it should of been possible in theory to get one. Hence I started buying clockwork smurfs on ebay.
Since I was a child I had a couple of smurfs and one day in 2007 I decided to buy more smurf figurines and not just always the same ones. Thus, so I thought, my smurfy friends would accept me as a real "genuine" smurf collector.

Maybe I prefer collecting other figurines but since one cannot find many other figurines in the local toy stores (except some Disney ones and others from Schleich) one day I will own more smurfs not than you, but maybe than snorks.

How long? For 30 years in June.

[FlamingO]

Again, getting them from the National garages, then from a shop in my Nan's town. Assumed smurfs had ceased to be made for a long time until I walked past a shop in Portugal bout ten years ago and there they were

[Chris McBrien]

I was with my dad shopping at JC Penny's back in the mid to late seventies..it must have been 1978. When we went up to the counter I saw a box of "little blue elves"...mostly papa smurf, normal smurf, brainy and gold smurf. I immediately fell under their spell and wanted to buy all of them! (now I wish I had!). I had no money, and was seven going on eight years old at the time, so what could I do? I had picked out gold smurf..so the only thing left was to BEG my dad to buy it! My dad's notoriously cheap..which is ok, I love my dad! however, it must have been "meant to happen" because my dad thought they were neat, too, and said that I could buy one!
Happily I took him (gold smurf) home in my shirt pocket and immediately began to make a little shoebox house for him and miniature furniture so he could "live" in my bedroom!
Then, not more than a few months later, my friend Eric's dad had come home from a business trip to Germany and had brought back toothpaste, astro and I vaguely remember a few others (but those two stand out in my mind) and I was SO jealous! I couldn't take my eyes off of them! And of course, you know that means I must have been bitten by the Smurf bug badly! Eric, being the great friend he was, told me that he thought you could get them up at the Ben Franklin craft store by our house...so I rode my bike up there as soon as I could!
I remember distinctly NOT seeing astro...which was a bit of a let-down...but I did see others. I wanted to get more, but had no money. I also remember how great the store had made the display look..it was one of those big smurf display shelves that was almost overwhelming to the smurf-lover to lay eyes on. The windmill stands out in my mind..and I remember seeing the well playset and wanting that as well as a large smurfhouse!
So, Christmas arrives. I still only have one smurf!
My dad, remember him? I had begged him to get me a smurf house. My dad was attending seminary at the time (he's now a retired pastor), and my parents are divorced and both remarried. I was on visit with him again for about a week over Christmas up in Dubuque, Iowa. My dad didn't have a lot of money..poor college student. Somehow, though, my dad made sure I had a special surprise amid the clothes he always bought me. After opening up a number of shirts, underwear, socks and some hand-knitted slippers (my stepmom could knit a car if she needed one..and her slippers were extremely comfortable to wear!), there was one box left. I opened it up, and saw a small smurf house with a green roof. I was ecstatic!!! then, that same day during the early evening, my dad took me to the mall. He had spotted LOTS of smurfs at the Hallmark store. That evening I bought my secon, third and fourth smurfs...archer, policeman and bagpipe!
After that, I used to actually make bookmarks from paper and tie yarn tassles to them by punching a hole on top (I handmade the tassles). I would then draw caricatures/ cartoons on the bookmarks, load them onto a wagon (I had them spread out to display them) and would go door to door on my street at the age of eight to sell them to make money to buy smurfs! I would charge a dollar each. Once I sold four or five, I would go home, hop on my bike and go up to Ben Franklin to add a smurf to my collection! My fifth was "pirate" i believe, and my sixth was photographer super smurf...it gets blurry after that....
That's how I got started...and of course, the cartoons just made me go crazier!
BTW: I bought my dad the super-smurf "teacher" with papa and blackboard as a father's day gift at some point...and gave him watchman smurf much later. He still has both on display in his house. My dad thinks my smurf collection is "cool"...and likes to check them out when he comes to visit my wife, children and me. Unfortunately, my dad is battling cancer for the second time right now, but he's doing great and looks to be pulling through. He's a trooper!