[André]

2 versions of the UK boxes could mean they were released different years.

[Beers]

Fantastic work Andre yet again ! Your enthusiasm puts me to shame

Don't ask Martin for help either, he's out of his depth

Many thanks

[bundleofkent]

Cheeky t**t!!

Just because you beat M City at the weekend!!

By the way Andre-did I see your son wearing a Chelsea kit in a pic? What has happened there? I call that bad parenting!!

[André]

You are right Martin,

Isac and me was there visiting my wifes sister in London this year. Her husband is a Chelsea supporter ( he actually support the canaries since he grew up in Norwich) and he got these tickets through the company he worked for. We had to sit with the Chelseasupporters.

When we later was looking for the Everton kit, we couldn´t find any in the store. It was the last game for that season so maybe they were getting ready for the next seasonkits. But my wifes sisters husband insisted on buying a Chelsea kit for Isac as a gift ( off course I would not pay for that myself ) and I bought the nice Liverpool away kit for Edina, since that was the closest to Everton and looked nice.

OK, enough with that. ( Everton lost the game so I don´t want to talk about it )
back to the playsets.

This small booklet from National also tells us that, just like in the german-french-box, they released the garden playset one year before the other.
I believe that in this booklet you can see all the smurfitems you could buy at National 1978.

[André]

I got this booklet when I bought this large house in UK box and got these accessories. My UK-box is damaged so I don´t have the top on this and can´t see what is written there.

Sometime early they also changed the roof on the large house.
They added peyo and skipped the hole in the roof, but kept the base the same.

[André]

1978

Schleich released these 3 playsets the same year, 1978.

And as you see they put there own new moldsmurfs on the boxes, not Bullymolds. So they released mailman and hammersmurf this year also.

Moldyear of these playsetparts are 1977.

[Beers]

The quality of your pictures are excellent Andre

[angelsmurf]

Excellent work and presentation ,
I always thought I have a lot of smurfs and smurf stuff but some of you beat me out easily

I would say you should add "Prof. Dr. h.c. André" to your visiting (calling) card

[André]

At this time Schleich had released 4 playsets. So the back should look like this. But this backside also mention the cottages, so this box is probably from 1979. And this writing also tells us that the cottage was released before playset 5 was released. And since this goes well with the moldyears it is great.

As you can see on the second picture the backsides of the boxes had no window in the beginning. Instead they promoted their supersmurfs. The window was added around 1980.

[André]

Schleich still used their Schleichemblem in 78 so all parts in these playsets are available with this.

They still kept this emblem on many parts, but for example on the grass and under the posts for the fence they removed it later.

The pailings in the fence playset was not numbered in the beginning.

[André]

The material was softer in the beginning, so the first flowers and benches are softer than later productions. The early tables can be found in both colours. And the flowers can be found in yellow, white and red. Should be a blue also but that one is very rare.

I guess the blue flower also is soft.

[André]

Between 1977 and end of 1979 Schleich was not allowed to sell smurfs in Germany, Scandinavia and Canada. They had to go through Bully.
Therefore it seems some of the early colourversions are easier to find in for example France. Almost all the red flowers I have heard of have their orgin in France.

[André]

I have one green ladder which is a lot shorter than the other, both brown and green. I don´t know from where I got it so I don´t know when it was sold. But the green ladder has only been sold in playset 1 so it must belong to a garden playset.

[Lia]

All is so nice! I love the red flower! ( hope, you`ll find the blue flower one day!)

Lia

[André]

I would love to find the blue flower. But I don´t think it is that easy.

I will have to wait and start with 1979 later this week because of work, but I´ll be back.

[Beers]

Cheers once again Andre