Blue Cavern

Hi again everyone,

time for a historylesson again. But it could be interesting for some collectors.

Remember this I have showed before from the book about Schleich they sold recently. Here you can see what they write happened after the bancruptcy. Basicly this means they continued after 1987 only in Portugal( Maia), Tunisia ( Kraut) and China( C.Y. Lee)( and Germany off course ). This is also what they write later in the book. That Schleich still used these 3 countries for production outside Germany when they printed that book.

The Maia&Borges factory I have already told you about.

Krauts Nataschaplast factory in Tunisia I also have told you about.

But what about the factory C.Y Lee had to establish after the bancruptcy. Because this text clearly states that the former Hongkongfactory was not used after the bancruptcy and that is also the reason all smurfs manufactured and marked Hongkong stops before the bancruptcy.

The factory C Y Lee started in 1992 is called Lovable Products and you can find that many shipments mainly to Schleich in America are sent from them. As you may remember I told you that the first time the China-marking appears together with Schleich is in 1993.

But I think Schleich probably could have used some other manufacturer for a short while between 1988 and 1992?? But we also know Schleich had almost a standstill after the bancruptcy before getting back on track so that might have taken a few years before they needed help from all factories abroad???

As you see on their website they have plants in China and Hongkong.

http://www.lovable.com.hk/

And as you see they are a OEM manufacturer which means they makes toys for many companies. Schleich is only one of them. For example when Schleich did a serie together with the company Safari the factory made the same items sometimes for Safari and then later for Schleich. Or something like that.

Here you can also read that it was established by C Y Lee in 9th of April 1992. Not only that a person by that name is managing director now. So I think we have a match.

"Company Background
Lovable Products (Hong Kong) Ltd, established in Hong Kong by Mr C Y Lee on April 9, 1992, has its owned premises in Hong Kong, its own production plants in Dongguan (China), and a mature sales network in major cities of China.
Altogether we have a 1,800 staff work force. And we have in-house artists, engineers, mold-building workshop, plastic injection equipment, sewing/cutting machinery, QA laboratory and sales team.
In 1999, Lovable's Hong Kong office and China factory have become ISO-9001 certified which is an official recognition on company's commitment to good quality and customer service.
In 2007, our China Factory have officially become ICTI certified which has implemented and maintains the requirements in ICTI code of Business Practices and committed to operate the company in a lawful, safe and health manner "