[André]

I have a question for you.

It is always intersting to know how your collectionhabits have envolved, transformed, stopped and started. So when did you start collecting and have you continued all the time or have you had breaks?

I started collecting smurfs with my brother when the Bully-era started in around 1976( I am actually almost exactly as old as when Schleich made the first PVC smurfs, born in 1966 ). Probably had to do with the movie release and the amount of smurffigurines showed in the stores.

I still remember exactly in which store I bought my smurfs.

Then we stopped collecting around 1979/80.

And started again in around 2003 if I remember correct. My Children loved playing with my old smurfs stored at my parents place. So I got them back and started collecting again.

How long have you been collecting smurfs?

[TimeZero]

Easy question. Since I was 6 and now I am almost 40.
When I was 6, I started to play with them. I still have all my "played-with", "paintlossed" Smurfs that I purchased again later in good shape to add to my collection.
I only collect Smurf figurines, no other Smurfy items.

[The Smurf Collector]

I started collecting smurfs after a holiday in Europe where I rediscovered smurfs in Amsterdam in 2002. People were selling their McDonalds Promo ones in Vondelpark over the Queens Birthday celebrations. My next stop on my trip was Brussels upon where I visited the Comic art gallery and was just amazed by it all. This is where I brought three smurfs, which now sit in a glass cabinet separated from the other smurfs. They still have their tags on.

Upon returning to home, I was telling my hairdresser about the smurfs and he suggested a place where I can buy them. I still go there when I get the chance to buy smurfs.

[SmurfeeJo]

My Dad started buying me smurfs at the local BP service station when I was 6 (I'm 41 now). My entire childhood collection came from this one BP station which is still there today. I now buy my petrol there and always find myself looking around on their counter for the smurfs. I can still picture it as it used to be with rows of smurf things to buy.

I had a long break from collecting (about 28 years) and became interested again about 5 years ago and decided to try and collect again. I had no idea that Scheich had continued to release new smurfs every year and was overwhelmed with the number of smurfs I needed to get. This has added to the fun of collecting.

Now I enjoy the thrill of finding smurfs at second hand markets and garage sales and I've also had some given to me. I have brought some on-line, but don't find it as satisfying as going somewhere and discovering smurfs when you least expect it.

So I think I'm an old fashioned collector who just likes to buy smurfs when I come across them - this is what I enjoy. I concentrate on the normal PVC smurfs. Then I found Blue Cavern and now I have lots of smurfs friends!
Melbourne will soon have no smurfs left with both Kath and I hunting for them!

[The Smurf Collector]

Thats the plan isn't SmurfeeJo to have all the smurfs in Melbourne

[bundleofkent]

I collected as a kid from 1978-->1983.

Got back into them in 1999.

Sold most of my collection to fund my wedding last year which was the right thing to do but it nearly killed me! Some amazing pieces I lost and will never see again......am collecting again now, but just stuff I like rather than everything.
At one stage I had over 400 different sockels, 110 music boxes, 200 sharpeners etc etc

Martin

[Arno]

What Martin !
I did not understand why you always said you have sold your smurfs... so many unique smurfs. Waouh, lucky person you married !
I will stay unmarried to keep smurfs home.

For me I received my first smurfs from my mother in 1983-1984 ? Can't remember exactly, but there was the smurfette with rope in the first ones.
Then I had this passion for a long time, but there was a time when smurfs where difficult to find in shops in France, around 1994 I think, and after I went to university and slowly stopped with smurfs. But many friends were surprised by my collection and some gave me their old smurfs.

I began again in 1999-2000. But I let all the little blues (around 300 smurfs) in my mother's home when I left to Paris.

It's in 2008, when I discovered smurfs on ebay that I saw all that exists and more, and all I did not have and did not even know... like graduation smurfette, baseballer smurfette, smurfs with cones but also very common molds, that I began to buy smurfs to complete the collection.
I remember I hesitated : sold my smurfs or try to complete ?
If I knew I discovered websites like Rachel's and Dyar's ones, maybe I would have sold them !

Now I try to get all the variations and it takes much place and time, as many people here know.

[Smurfysmurf]

Like most, I have collected smurfs most of my life. But I did not become a "serious" collector until 2007.

As a child and teenager, I only collected smurfs that I liked..I found most on fleamarkets. As a teenager, I realized that smurfs are still available in toy stores, but to be honest, I didn't like the new look of them so I didn't buy too many of the new ones. My goal was always to build a smurf village, and I kept it outside (even in the living room) from time to time. When I got tired of it, I would put it away. I remember that as a child, I used to play with them as others play with dolls or cars, and I would store the smurfs in the large smurf house . Most of them were Bully smurfs (not that I paid attention to that back then). As my collection grew I had to get a plastic bag to store them.
As I got ready to move to the US, my grandmother gave my smurfs away and I never let her forget it ...she felt so bad about it that a few years later she took me to a little comic store where I went thru a large box of smurfs. I picked out the ones I used to have and she got them for me. The prices were outrageous but we didn't know and I was happy.

I was surprised how hard it was to find smurfs in the US (since I never had a problem finding them in Germany) but I remember finding a bag full of smurfs at a yard sale..and even though I didn't like them (clown, chemist and so on) I bought them and added them to my smurf village which I had displayed by now in the office. Once I found ebay, I bought a lot of smurfs and sold the ones I didn't like (which included some pretty rare ones which I later rebought). I was very surprised when I found out that there is an actual forum about smurfs (Blue Cavern) and once I joined in 2007 I was a lost case....and have been ever since then.

[Smurfysmurf]

Good to see you collecting again, Martin . I was sad when you sold your collection, although the reason was a pretty good and exciting one. And I did end up getting some nice variations out of it as well

[Cassiebsg]

Uhm... I can't remember when I started getting Smurfs... I was probably between 3 to 5 years old, according to my brother he started getting them and then I wanted too, so my parents always bought some to me when he got some. My brother used to get them when he traveled abroad with my uncle and aunt (he's older than me). We used to save our allowance and buy them at the local shop (not just smurfs, but other toys too).

I still remember like it was yesterday, the day I bought my first one. I was most likely in 4 fourth class (+/-10 years old) when I "broke free" from school during recess and went with a friend to a shop that had the new smurfs (Thanksgiving smurfs). I remember I admired them thru the shop window and trying to decide which one to buy. I ended buying the one with the Turkey and was so looking forward to return home and show it to my brother! (It was the first smurf I bought alone!) I used the rest of the day in class admiring it on my desk and drawing it on my notebook...

Anyway, I can't really remember when I/we stopped collecting them, but I remember seeing some new ones in a shop years later and being admired that they were still making new smurfs (I think I remember that one of them was the Groom - I did not bough any).
The year before I moved to Denmark my dad decided to give us (me and my brother 13 new smurfs he had found on a shop - guess he was as surprised that they were still making new ones... and the fact that my brother was rather paranoid with where the bag with the smurfs was all the time)... guess that lifted the lid on the can... cause a year or two after that I was waling at a marked and there was this guy with a small box with Smurfs on it... I looked at it and found the 2.0083 Hammer, which I did not had and bought it! But finding smurfs over here in markets is a very hard task!
At a local toy shop and I bought the only ones they had left - Goal keeper and Frankenstein.
One day I found out that they were for sale (a lot of those that I did not had) on online sites for almost no money I started "nursing" the idea of getting them... and once I took the "plunge" and registered myself on these sites I started buying all that were "on budget" (not more expensive than a regular new one)... been buying them since.

Just a note, even though I stopped buying Smurfs for a very long time, I always had a few on the shelfs in my room... namely the x-mas smurfs always found their place forward during Christmas...
My brother always had (and still has) a few selected ones displayed in his room...

[André]

Thank you all for sharing this.

Do you still have memories of which smurfs you could buy? I remember some.
I still remember we got the different shirts on Gymnast. But I do not remember which was the first smurf we got.

Still funny though I remember the glass shelves in the toystore with all the smurfs and trying to deside which one to buy.

Just like my children do today when desiding what Schleich animal they want to buy.