Blue Cavern

Today I finally got my last box of the 1995 releases.

As you may know Schleich started with the polkadot boxes in 1995. But already in 1996 they changed the colours on all the house, cottages, farm, windmill and Gargamels castle. So the boxes were only made for one year. But some are not that rare because they were used many years after.

There is one box that I have been looking for many years now and never seen on any collectors website, neither on ebay before. Only in the catalogue. I thought once this was a box they did not use because they anyway should change the colours and had so many of the old boxes so they did never made it. But I have seen it on a youtube clip of a danish collection, so then I knew it was sold and existed.

If you compare with the 1995 farm box which you see sometimes on ebay, I would say you could find 30 of those boxes and only one of this one.

My guess is that Schleich, like today sometimes, had already boxes to use for the windmill and therefore had no need to make new. And when they made new windmills in yellow material they started using those instead. ?? Or that Schleich did not made many new windmills in 1995, if they had many in stock??

At least I am happy to have finally found this one.

Of course there are many collectors who don´t care about the boxes and therefore it is not that intresting. But from a historical point I really like this.

Also between 1990 and 1995 we many times find the very, almost "oversprayed", windmills. From very brown, to very blue, to almost no paint( grey-white).

Congratulations André

I've been after this exact one for a long time too and haven't succeeded in adding it to my collection. Nice to see someone finding it out there still.

The hunt continues for me

Dyar

Hi Andre

Congratulations, very nice find ................

The hunt continues for me

That means for me to, but that's for a lot of smurfs .......

Tintin

Well done on completing your 1995 boxes André

I don't have any windmills yet but maybe I'll get one one day if it's not too expensive.

congratz André
I know the feeling! Sometimes, one has to be patient for years, before you`ve finally got what you wanted so much.
Never knew that this box existed.

Lia

A funny thing with this is that I can see myself throwing away the boxes. I have to do the same thing many times with lego, playmobil, etc. when having 3 kids. Can´t keep all the boxes. So I understand why some of the bigger boxes are harder to find. They take a lot of space. I have tried to save the boxes for my daughters animals accessories, like airplane, farm, stable, westernset, etc. But I don´t know where to keep them.

Since, living in Sweden,I have to wait another month before I can see the smurfmovie with my daughters (my son is 16 years old and I probably have to pay him to go with us?? ) I still can keep focus on the variations of the PVC´s.

So another thing with the windmill boxes. I am pretty sure the windmill-playset was sold in around 1991-1995 since I have it mint with CE stickers outside the box and Stefan also had never seen this box before he bought it in 2002. The Miller smurf was only sold between 1982 and 1986 to go with the windmill, forklift and conveyor belt. When they did not make the playsets anymore after the financial problems they also stopped making the millersmurf and also the sacks for that.

But when making the playsets again in the 90s they needed sacks again because they wanted to use them( or children wanted to use them) for the playsets, forklift and conveyor belt. Therefore Schleich made the softer yellow sacks in the 90s.

I have one millersmurf I am pretty sure are among the first variations made for the millersmurf and this has the more greyish sack.

But in my windmill playset I got 6 sacks, as said on the box, and also a millersmurf with the same variation of the sack, in a bag together. The miller variation I have in this playset have the yellow soft bag.

So I am sure this was sold like this even after the last Millersmurf was sold according to catalogue. Dyar has this also on his website.

Now when telling this it of course would be very easy for fakers to take a yellow bag from the playsets sold in the 90s and glue it together with a millersmurf to get this variation. But I just wanted to tell you this variation is a genuine one, eventhough not necessarily sold as a regular smurf.

Also my wife gave me a few green "stripes"( she works as a gardener and gets these many times with plants), made of plastic with metal inside( see picture). Could not help thinking about how a faker could make very nice skippingropes of those??? Smurfette with green skippingrope!!

when having 3 kids. Can´t keep all the boxes. They take a lot of space. But I don´t know where to keep them.

I will happily mind your new Windmill box in my collection to save your space

Dyar

Congratulations to the special mill box André! I agree with your opinion about the availability of the box...