[Guest]

I received an email from Jan today saying that the Green Star Jesters I had weren't actually Green Jesters, they were the Gold Star ones and the gold had just oxidised to green.

Anyone who has bought one of these and wants to return it for refund please let me know.

[Fram]

Does he mean that all Green Star jesters are like that, or only the ones he delivered to you? I would have to check them again, but it seems like a strange explanation to me (the green on mine is way to clear to be oxidized, in my opinion).

[Guest]

Jan is a customer and a board member, she said it is oxidised, and she is talking about one I sold to her, and as they are all from the same lot I would assume all to be the same. Jan has an extensive collection and I know she will know what she is talking about.

What she is saying is that the green should be a richer colour, it is too thin and is in fact gold oxidised which ends up looking green. So I am 100% sure what Jan is saying is correct.

[Fram]

Okay! But as she says that the green should be another colour, she just means that the one she got from you is oxidized, not that there are no real Green Jesters out there. Phew, that's a relief (for me).

[Guest]

I only had a few of these, they all came from Maltese shop stock, and the only people on here who bought one were David and Dyar, I need to check if Simon & Lucie bought one also. Jan obviously knows already and I have contacted another customer who bought one to offer them a refund.

[Guest]

Apparently it should be a darker green like the one shown on Pete's site here. He has made a comment about the gold-green thing. I think it's one of those things where you need to have both in your hands to see the difference, or my bad eyesight!!!

http://search.cartserver.com/search/sea ... 0&bool=AND

[Syd Smurf]

The gold buttons on 1 or 2 of my Papa Captains (20141) have gone green so I know what you and Jan mean. I have noticed that the green on the Jesters look like they were originally green but Mrs Dyar disagreed with me about this. The DSK doesn't mention green stars which I thought was strange but maybe there's something to that now.

Dyar

[Guest]

Do you mean originally gold?

Don't ever be worried about asking me stuff like this because I would much rather know than sell something that wasn't as described.

[XoioX2000]

It's still an interesting variation in my eyes Karen... so no worries!

Thanks for the info though!

If anybody has one with green stars, I'd love to see the pics!!!

Cheers,

David

[Fram]

I have one, and it looks (to me) like it always was green. No trace of gold or anything goldlike. But I have no way to be certain of course. The stars are a dark green which is slightly lighter to the edges (as if the paint is thinner there).

[Jan]

Here are some color variations of Jesters. Tarnished gold, brighter gold, the gold that turns green and the one with the green stars. The green stars are painted with the same paint as the suit. The same shades of gold paint were also used on the Champion Smurfs. The scan is not very good, but you can get a pretty good idea of the color.

Jan

[Fram]

Thanks Jan! I hope I dodn't come across as doubting you, that wasn't the intention. As my green star jester has dark green stars and a bright green suit, I suppose he will be a discolored one after all. But he is still nice

[Guest]

Thanks for showing us that, Jan. I was wondering, did someone run some tests on these to show the gold oxidised with age? I am just wondering where this info came from? I can see the difference in the green now and I am relieved that I am not the only one getting in a muddle with these.

[Jan]

I don't know if anyone has done any tests and don't recall where the info. came from, but I just did a search on the internet and it is quite common for gold metallic paint to oxidize to green. Apparently some gold metallic paints are made with real metallic particles and when exposed to the elements, will turn green. Perhaps this is the answer?

You are right Fram, he is a nice one to have. Although Karen did offer my money back, I would not even consider returning the piece as the green-gold is a great color variation. The more Smurfs the better!

Jan

[Guest]

Yes it definitely is a greeny gold, if I had heard of this oxidising problem before then I think I would have realised what had happened. It's all good stuff to know though! This one goes down with yellow umbrellas I guess. What's your take on yellow umbrellas, Jan? Do you think there is a real one or they are all just sun bleached?

[Jan]

Hi Karen,

This topic came up on Pete's site awhile ago and rather than write my thoughts out again, I have pasted my previous post below:

Re: 20118 Yellow Umbrella
Hi Pete,

I don't know if this info. will be of any help to you in making a decision, but this is my experience with this piece. I have 2 of the yellow mushroom Smurfs, one marked Hong Kong and the other marked Hong Kong W. Berrie & Co. The first piece I bought came from a garage sale here in Canada for a mere 10 cents. It was slightly damaged on the tip of the mushroom and I could clearly see the orange PVC. I wondered if it was real or faded, so I contacted Suzanne and asked her if it was possible that the yellow version was just the result of exposure to the sun. I have her letter here where she states that she did not think that orange could fade to yellow (she put an exclamation mark after that statement, so I think she was pretty definite in her thoughts). I saw a second piece come available in the UK, so I bid and won that piece. When it arrived, it was identical in color, with the yellow top and the yellowish orange underside. On the first piece, the head of the Smurf is closer to the mushroom and when I move it aside, the orange is a darker shade.

My thoughts are that these pieces are either faded from sun, been exposed to fluorescent lighting, or the PVC formula was a little different in some of the batches.

I have attached some pictures and hope they are of some use to you.

Jan

[Guest]

Thanks Jan. I do remember that being talked about on MV now but I didn't remember that you posted on there so sorry for making you repeat yourself!

I think like you say there was either a difference in the formulation or they got sun bleached, I don't think anyone set out to make this a yellow variation but then that's just my opinion. Thanks for posting your pics here.

I also wanted to ask you about the mini models you have. I have quite a few of the mini models here and I am finding that all the ones I have seen are badly rubbed, I am finding it difficult to find decent condition ones. I was wondering if the ones you have in your collection are all decent ones or is it par for the course with these that they are bad condition. I can see they were badly manufactured just from the state of the ones I have seen, it has to be poor quality of paint used causing them to look so ropey. I know you are a stickler for quality so I wondered how you had got on with these and if you had managed to get some good ones?

[Syd Smurf]

Great info and photos Jan, thank you for posting those.

I am also interested in what Karen asked about the Mini Models and also have a further question to ask. How can you tell if a smurf is a Mini Models one if it doesn't have any markings? I am trying to sort through my fakes or unauthorised smurfs so I can identify them which is tough as I obviously have several different types and I am not 100% sure of them all.

The Grotesque ones are easy and I know the Spanish ones but some others I am not sure if they are CNTs from Spain, Polish, Argentinia or from somewhere else. I am getting better with the Polish ones but as far as I know I don't have any Mini Models and wanted to find out how I could tell incase I did have a couple in my collection that weren't identified as such.

Thanks

Dyar

[Jan]

Karen I checked over my Minimodels and only found a few that had spots of paint missing here and there. The biggest problem I have found with the ones I have is that they are sloppily painted and there is a lot of extra paint on them that has rubbed off of other pieces during shipment. The PVC is somewhat harder than a Schleich Smurf so I used a Mr. Clean magic eraser on them and the extra paint rubbed off. Of course you can only do this on the white areas, if you rub on the painted parts, the paint will come off including the paint you don't want off.

The easiest way to tell a Minimodel is by the tail, although this is not very helpful when the piece does not have a tail like the Doctor or some of the Smurfettes. The tail is white with only a small blue circle painted in the middle. The PVC is also harder. The only reason I knew my pieces without markings were Minimodels was because I bought a tub of them from Argentina with a Minimodels sticker on it, but the unusual tail painting is consistent with all the pieces I have. Dyar, I think if you were able to acquire a marked Minimodel and examine it and feel the difference in the PVC, you would find the unmarked ones much easier to identify. Hope this helps, let me know if you have any other questions.

Jan

[Syd Smurf]

Thanks Jan that's very good info...I will be checking the bottoms of all of my unidentified fake smurfs to see if any are actually mini models.

I will let you know if I find any that I think my be Argentina ones.

Thank you

Dyar