Blue Cavern

Hi everyone,

here is the display sold at National Benzole in march 1979 when only 30 smurfs were sold at the stations in UK.

First the picture of from the store. I hope it is OK to use these in educational purpose. For everyone interested in the way the smurfs were sold in the UK this could be interesting.

As you see the display was possible to buy loose and bring home and also used in the store. Just like they did in Holland with the BP-shelves. You could buy them and use at home for your own collection and the stores also used them to show which smurfs they had at the stations to buy.

You also see that when this picture was taken the playset 3, fence, was not sold yet and they still had not changed and added the number 1 to the garden playset.

Also you can see the National attendant promo super in box. And the UK supersmurf boxes in front. Only six possible at this time.

Also a sharpener displaybox was possible to find in the UK.

Yop can also see on this picture that the yellow scarfes on the sleigh super and the sweep super was sold at that time on this closeup.

Therefore my display shown at the museum will be like this.

these are the variations sold at the time I believe and also shows the paintvariations used for the National promotion. It is hard to see on the picture exactly which variatons were used by at the same time it is good to show national variations and I also belive that the yellow glasses on Brainy, yellow latern and the yellow scarf on shiver was used early in 1979.

All these have a few things in common. First as you may know they are all marked with a yellow dot. The yellow dots started in october 1978 so all these should have and also have the yellow dot. Except the super skier, since I could not check all the boxes. I might have it. If not I will have to buy it on ebay before next year!!

The second and very important thing is thast if you want to get the correct smurfs for this display; all smurfs have no yearmarkings. Schleich had not started with this yet when these were sold.

I also added the national petrol attendant to show which PVC smurfs were possible to buy at this time, eventhough his name is not marked on the display.

All names on the display I have matched exactly with the names in this ad from March 1979. Except that the Postman is called Valentine. This could have been a seasonal thing. Just like with the christmasvariation of the postman with a yellow dot and I will tell about later.

I will show the individual markings on these smurfs tomorrow.

And which variations are possible. First these ones.

And as usual I could use some help on some smurfs!!

So see you tomorrow!!

First of all, good job as always and thank you for the store pictures. It's good to know that the pencil sharpener box is from England..where I got mine from as well

Also love the mini shelf poster of which I have a similar one..and good to see there are more display boxes for me to look for

In regards to the skateboarder... do you agree that the yellow shirt one was also released in the UK as was the yellow shirt sledder, brainy with the yellow glasses and the yellow scarf shiver?

Hi Maureen,

I believe that is correct Maureen. The yellow shirt skateboarder was sold in the UK for awhile, but not in the beginning. Some of these variations were made for National and seems to have been used only in the UK. But for example the yellow scarf shiver; he is not that rare to find without yellow dot. So maybe that variation, just like soccervariations, sunbathers, brainys could have been used in other countries also??

Or it could be that those ones without the dots were made before the lead paint scare??

Hi Everyone

I purchased this Smurfland display stand earlier in the year from Ebay. The seller advised that his dad used to run a BP service station in Australia.

It appears that they are the same smurfs as Andre's display though in a different sequence.

The display also came with some Bendy smurfs that were still in their packaging. Though the packaging was in pretty poor condition.

Cheers Kath

Hi Kath,

you are 100% correct. The display was also used at the BP stations in Australia. I also have got one of those. But there is a difference. BP Australia did not use the same names on the smurfs when selling them as they did in UK. Just as they used different names in Holland or in the US.

If you look at the first picture from the shop you see that the display came in a plastic wrapping and without the stickers with the names of the smurfs. My guess is that these stickers were sold with the display and then you could add the names when you got the smurfs?? Anyway it seems like the station where you got your display added the english names to the shelves. Could be that BP sent the already marked displays to the stations in the beginning and also added the smurfs for promotional purpose??

I got my display together with a lot of BP australia promotion items and also the very rare BP playset in box. The display I have was used all the way until BP stopped with the smurfs in Australia around 1981/82. Therefore alot of smurfs have been added ( written names) and also some removed.

All the smurfs were glued so therefore they had to ruin the display when removing the smurfs. But the good thing is that the ones still there have never been changed and are actually the correct ones sold in Australia.

On these posters from 1980 and 1981 you can see which smurfs were sold by BP Ausralia and which names were used.

But I have many times also got yellow dot smurfs from early collections in Australia. Therefore I am 100% sure, just like with the early smurfs sold in the US, that they also sold germanmade smurfs in the beginning in both these countries before the Hongkongfactory had enough capacity to manufacture enough smurfs.

On my australian display there are only Hongkongmade smurfs and those were the ones sold there unless they had a problem with the stocks and had to use the other smurfs made for BP( in this case the yellow dot smurfs).

If I compare the names on the stickers on my display and also the written names on the shelfes with the names used on the posters by BP Australia they match all the time.

One example of differences on the names used is the latern-smurf.

National called him Carolling.

BP Australia called him Watchman.

Other examples are Bass guitar and Soccer, which are names BP used in Australia.

National in the UK used Rocker and Striker for the same smurfs.

Actually BP Australia also used Rocker but then they meant the Lute-smurf.

I will make a BP Australia display also. From around 1981. On that display I will use smurfs like this. Hongkongmarked but without W Berrie. Just like the ones on my display.

I will probably need your help then Kath! I don´t think I have all the ones with the correct markings. For example I don´t have the Handy with only Hongkong-markings( the one without W Berrie).

If you see a display in Australia which is in a better shape than mine let me know Kath.

Now back to the UK National markings.

Here are the first 4 smurfs.

As I told you before they should not have any yearmarkings or Portugal-markings in 1979. All these were molds Bully had for awhile and therefore the emblem was removed. Smurfette is unmarked and only have the cavitynumber.

Now to the question why I used the Brainy with the yellowglasses, since yellow dots exist on both red and yellowglasses-Brainy.

The answer is on the BP poster from 1980. The picture was taken probably in 1979 when the BP promotion started in australia and on that picture are many germanmade smurfs. Therefore I am 100% sure the yellow glasses Brainy existed in 1979 and was used by BP. And if it was used by BP and had a yellow dot it definatly was used by National in 1979.

Next 4 smurfs. 3 of these were also molds Bully had. Therefore marking should be removed emblem and no other marking than the original ones Schleich had before Bully got them. So only Peyo, W germany and cavitynumber.

But Carolling was made by Schleich after the break and therefore has the Schleichemblem also.

The yellow dots can also be found on Carolling with both red roof and yellow roof on the latern. But I have chosen the yellow roof latern because I am almost 100% sure that variation also was made for BP, since I also have got one from a early collection in Australia with a few germanmarked and yellow dot-marked smurfs. So I am also in this case almost certain the yellow latern existed in March 1979 and was a special BP-variation.

The next 4 smurfs, 2 with removed emblem and 2 with Schleichemblems. And only Peyo and W germany-markings. Yellow dots on all them as always.

Dyar has a miniposter from National at his site. That one shows the red pants sunbather and a yellow ring on the swimmer. So I will probably use the red pants sunbather for the display instead??

I think the most common sunbather with yellow dot is the one with green pants though.