[Lia]

Today, I received my 3rd orange mechanic!
I noticed, he has different size and markings
just wanted to show here

Lia

[Lia]

markings

[Pitufo]

The left one is an original Schleich smurf...I AM SURE!!!!!!!!

The smurf without overall is REALLY LOVELY!!!!!!!!

[Smurfysmurf]

I agree, Joaquin

On both accounts

[SmurfingH]

I love the little one too. He has such a cheeky face! Great new addition Lia!

[Lia]

Finally I found the orange mechanic without markings ( left one on picture)

[Lia]

markings

[Pitufo]

Nice pic, Lia!!!!!!!!From Spain, I suppose?????

[SmurfingH]

At the moment I'd settle for just one of these! Nice smurfies there Lia.

[Smurfysmurf]

Great that you managed to get your hands on that one as well, Lia

Do you know if there are any more orange mechanic variations out there?

[Ritter_Schlumpfenherz]

Congratulations Lia.

[Lia]

Thank you all!!!

@ Joaquin: Yes, from Spain and I received almost 80 spanish smurfs this week!
@ Maureen: if some others orange mechanics exist, I hope, someone will show them here!

[eggie smurf]

Congrats on your find, Lia

[Tojo]

Well done Lia, they are all wonderful

[André]

Hi, Christy...I have no much info...It is my opinion, but it is a welll reasoned opinion...

You know, for example, the yellow variation of shiver, pirate, skater etc etc were sold in England...I suppose it was a common thing: a concrete colour variation for a concrete market. Schleich distributed most of the orange mechanic they made in spanish market (the same for white helmet american football). When they began to deal with the spanish manufacturer to produce smurfs here, the spanish guys used the orange mechanic Schleich distributed in our country, as reference...And this is the origin (always in my opinion) of the mistake of considering them as cnt...I bought one of mine when I was a child, and I bought it at the same store I usually bought smurfs. I have asked recently again to the seller of the old store (it is open still...the seller was a collector time ago and he is called Joaquín too ), and he said me that he bought smurfs only from ONE distibutor...It has no sense that the same Schleich manufacturer sold smurfs with license and smurfs without license...
If you think carefully, most of the orange mecahnis we have a and we see on ebay are from Spain, but it doesn´t mean they are all cnts. It is true they are all from the spanish markets, but some of them are licensed and some others aren´t. The licensed has the same size than green one, and the same quality, and the markings Wgermany/peyo...the unlicensed are smaller than the regular green one, different quality, and has no markings or a very bad written(hard to read) Schleich emblem and peyo

ONLY MY OPINION from my own and old experience

Hi Joaquin,

Maybe I can help you here???

The 2 markingversions you describe are both licensed?? The reason they are different are that one was made in Germany ( old Schleichmold with removed emblem) and one in Hongkong ( without overall in mold).

If you look at the emblems on Lias smurfs and these ones, they are placed on the exact same place as on the first HK versions. These also have different size and different material. I don´t have the one with cavitynumber 3 but if anyone has that one I bet it is exactly on the same place on Lia´s orange machanic. Only the HK smurfs have these large "mirrorturned" cavitynumbers I believe???

So both are the molds used by Schleich during the time they just started with the smurfs again.

And if you look at this newsarticle I have shown before from the SCCI letters:

" SCCI newsletter 45 quote a newspaper telling us this: In 1978/79 a lawsuit was brought by Peyo against Bully, to terminate his contract with them to produce smurf figurines. Bully had exclusive sales of the smurfs in West Germany, Scandinavia and in Canada. The first court battle was lost by Peyo.
In the meantime Schleich was continuing production of smurfs in many other european contries, and started with USA, Japan, Australia, South africa etc.
Bullys contract with Peyo expired 31 december 1979. After this Schleich was the sole manufacturer and seller. And worldwide distributor according to the wish of Peyo!! "

This tells us Schleich was not allowed to make smurfs in Germany before end of 79 and therefore produced and painted them in other countries.

My guess as yours is that they could have had plans painting smurfs in Spain in 1978 but for some reason choose other countries. Could have something to do with the discussion about that the painted ones from HK used toxic paint in 1978 and therefore they had plans to paint them somewhere else??? But then got OK to paint them in HK ( no toxic in paint) and dropped this plan???

[André]

I have 4 first HK smurfs of the mechanic and all are spraypainted and with the mouth painted all the way and no overalls in the mold like on the orange mechanic. I think I only have seen them like this on all websites???

So the orange mechanic with this marking was not painted in HK in my opinion but it is the HK mold I think. But as said they could have had plans using these molds to paint them in spain instead of HK. The time is correct so I believe you could be right about the orange mechanic Joaquin. What do you think about this Joaquin?

[Pitufo]

Hi, André....Thans for your infoa nd opinion...It is really hard to know or get info of a smurf that was made more than 30 years ago...It has sense all you say about the troubles btw Schelich and Bully...Have these facts relation with the different orange mechanics????Well, my opinion is th same above...I am sure Schleich sold the orange mecahnic (licensed) in Spain, and this way was distributed...For taht reason is a "common" smurf is Spain but it isn´t in other countries like Germany, where that had not the license for certain years...

Sorry, if it is not c lear, but it is hard for me to speak about philosofy in different languages than mine!!!!

[Pitufo]

I DON´T KNOW IF I SHARED THIS INFO WITH YOU TIME AGO...

I am making an interesting and deep research about cnts...I have found a son of a friend of the owner of the factory that made those smurfs...The factory, as I suppose you know, was called COMICS FIGURAS S.L, and the owner was Mr XY...This person has told me that Mr XY had a small business of toys at Barcelona...He usually travelled to Germany with his wife at beginning 80´s and brought to his store big lots of Schleich smurfs...It was a complet SUCCESS!!!!!!!This way he contacted with Schleich and began to speak about the possiblity of distribute them in Spain...Mr XY was bussiness man and he decided to create his own little factory...It seems Mr XY and Schelich spoke about the license but this is the last thing this man knows and he is not sure (his father is alive and he will try to get more info...He became in the biggest distributor of the toys of Comics Figuras S.L, and for that reason teh friendship). Because of his father job, he had all the different models they made...He thinks only 60-70 different molds were used, but not sure...

Now I am trying to find a son of Mr XY or a grandson...Perhpas they have more info, or have a file with dates, numbers etc...

- We always have thought about cnts history this way: a spanish manufacturer began to make smurfs by order of the own Schleich (cheaper to make at the same country where they were going to be distributed...and an important thing: Spain had the lowest salaries in Europe)). then they checked the quality and decided not to let them to make smurfs...The smurfs they had made yet, were sold without the license and without the permission of Schleich...This would agree with the info this guy has, but he is not sure if they spoke about licenses

- But after chatting with this man (and hope to know more info soon), I am thinking thta perhaps things were another way...Mr XY used all the smurfs he bought at Germany to make his own molds...he made thousands and thousand, but without the permission of Schleich...He could only made the smurfs he found there (it explains why some smurfs of the same years are existing as cnt and others aren´t)...Mr XY lived at the the region where most of manufacturers of toys in Spain were: Catalonia, so I suppose it was not hard to find the machines...the probelm arrived when the distributor of original smurfs (Yolanda) realized...Perhpas Schleich "thretaened" them with denouncing and the smurfs stopped to be made...He went on making others figures: some with license and some others with licensed (disney, warner etc)

Well, you know I love theories!!!!!!!!!!jejejeje

NOTE 1: I use the word "license" but really not sure if thst is right. I have no idea how the world of licenses is...If you can sell a license other sold you, if you can share it etc etc

NOTE 2: sorry for not saying the real name...two reasons: It is the result of a private conversation, and one more: there are many people who uses the forum to get info only, so perhaps he is more intelligent than me, and contact with a member of the family, and he/she sells thousans of cnts they have in the old factory etc etc etc

[Lia]

I understand so well that second reason
Never make that name public Joaquin!!
Lia

[André]

Thanks for the info Joaquin!!

The marking make sence if he bought a lot of smurfs and made his own smurfs around this time. Because I only believe the HK emblem without hongkongmarking was sold somewhere around 78 to 81. So either he used it licensed ( agreed with Schleich) between these years or without a licence and then he could have used it anytime just as long as he had this smurf and made a copy of it.

I am really looking forward to hearing your info about the CNT´s when you get more info!!!