Blue Cavern

Hi again,

I have been thinking about the years for these smurfs.

Because of the marking I am pretty sure they are licensed. As said before it would be a very strange marking to put on a fake smurf. Also the fact that they later erased the marking and changed the colours to "non-smurfy" tells us they most certainly were licensed. No point in erasing the marking if they were fakes from the beginning.

The reason for the marking could be that Dupuis in this case used already existing smurfs marked and owned by Peyo.

If you look at the dupuis union smurfs they are painted just like the early Schleich and Bully smurfs. Peyo were very strict about the colours and would have wanted them painted the same way.
Naugthy was sold 1974 so I am sure they were made after 1974.
The drummer with yellow sticks was painted like that until approximatly 1976.
The black robe on the judge was changed to red also before 1976.

So this tells us they must have been made in the beginning of the Bully era, most likely around 1975. The orange ones were most likely made just after they stopped using these molds in around 1976/77??

Could this be correct?

Could have been some kind of promotional items they used for the first real smurfmovie, which had the premiere in Belgium in 1976???

Just like today when the movie hit the cinemas a lot of smurfstuff is sold.

On many sites it says that the first smurfs made by Bully were used in Kelloggs. Actually the year for the Dupuis union smurfs could be 1974.

But there are a lot of things telling us that is likely not the case.

The material is very different and so is the paintwork. So it is very very unlikely that Bully made these smurfs. But they could have been used in Kelloggs boxes later around 1975 made by another company?? Maybe a company in Belgium??

In 1974 Bully just started making smurfs in a garage in Germany, this also tells us it is very very unlikely that Bully made these smurfs. In the beginning Bully never used any markings and not until 1975/76 they got their own printed marking.