Blue Cavern

Hi,

I have listed the possible variations of the smurfs Schleich made in 1965 on my website. So far no pictures but I will soon add pictures and years for each marking. I think those are the only markingvariations existing.

Let me know if you think something is missing!!

http://thecursedcountry.com/regularsmur ... 20022.html

Only papa with pictures so far.

All smurfs made until around mid 1969 can be found with no marking or only peyo marking. Probably because Schleich used these as promos in some way in the beginning.

Would this include all smurfs with no markings? If so, it means a lot of smurfs were made between 1965-1969....stilll confused about the molds that Bully first released as some of these also have no markings or just the Peyo markings i.e. the Beer smurf

I mean the smurfs Schleich made until mid 1969 Maureen.

Normal, Gold, Prisoner, Angry, Spy, Drummer, Brainy and maybe also Astro.

Basicly it seems the story is like this Maureen.

You can find all the first smurfs Schleich made without markings or with only peyo marking.

And then when Bully started making smurfs same thing happened.

You will be able to find all the smurfs Bully made 20068-20083, meaning all smurfs they made for the first 2 years, without markings or only with Peyo marking. I have almost all of these with no markings and also with only peyo marking. Off course also Bully digger which also was made then.

This is a fact for both these companies. Many collectors have these and they are genuine Schleich and Bully smurfs.

Only these Bully smurfs can be found without marking. And not one of them, but all of them.

Same with the first smurfs Schleich made during their first years. Not one of them but all of them.

Why it is like this I don´t know, but all the first smurfs from both companies were made unmarked or with only Peyo marking.

The unmarked Schleichmolds were made during 1965-1969.

The unmarked Bullymolds were used 1974-1975.

For both companies the smurfs made after this have markings, with probably some exceptions??

Could be that the first smurfmolds made for each company had to be accepted by Peyo before adding the peyo marking??? But that sound strange also??

The only thing we can say is that all first smurfmolds from each company were unmarked in the early years for each company.

Thanks, Andre

I've started working on my website again as well, so hope you are ready for lots of questions

Your research is very helpful..and you have no idea how much it's appreciated you share it with us. Never thought I'd learn so much about the history of the PVC figurines..and wouldn't have if it wasn't for you

One thing I am trying to figure out with my website is how to sort the individual variations of each mold...was thinking of doing it by company (i.e. Bully, Schleich and so on). Not sure if I want to go there though, but would you agree that it is very safe to say that all the smurfs with the "ring" under their feet are in fact Bully smurfs because the Schleich emblem has been removed?

I know we talked about this often enough..and your theory is very logical (sorry been watching too much Star Trek again ), but before I put this on my website, I just want to confirm that we can be 99% sure (96% will work as well) that this is a fact

I don't think I would call them Bullysmurfs Maureen!

I would see it like this. First of all all molds basicly is owned by Peyo, because no matter which company makes these Peyo has the rights for the smurfs.

So when Schleich lost the rights to make smurfs they had to give the molds to Peyo. And then peyo could give them to Bully. Bully removed the emblem on those molds, but for me they are still and will always be Schleichmolds. Bully only borrowed these for about 3 years and then had to give them back, when Peyo wanted Schleich to make all smurfs again.

Thanks for clearing this up...they won't be sorted by company name then

And the fact is that almost all of them were made by Schleich after they got them back from Bully. Only a few were made by Bully, compared to the amounts made after 1977. They had the ring all the time after also.