[André]

Here are the smurfs that BP sold in South Africa in 1980.

It is nice to see name like spaceman for 20003 Astro. They used the Schleicharticlenumbers on the smurf order forms.

20002 Normal smurf
20005 Gold smurf
20006 Scholar smurf
20009 Drummer smurf
20012 Mechanic smurf
20013 Guitar smurf
20014 Sunbather smurf
20018 Crying smurf
20023 Bass guitar smurf
20024 Latern smurf
20031 Postman smurf
20034 Smurfette
20038 Singer smurf
20040 Gift smurf
20045 Artist smurf

20001 Papa smurf
20017 Mirror smurf
20020 Gymnast smurf
20021 Sleepwalker smurf
20022 Auther smurf
20044 Lover smurf

20003 Spaceman smurf
20004 Winter smurf
20008 Spy smurf
20030 Olympic smurf
20035 Soccer smurf

New ones for june 1980:
20010 Prisoner smurf
20011 Laughing smurf
20015 naughty smurf ( same as not hearing smurf)
20016 Judge smurf
20019 Flower smurf

[The Smurf Collector]

Hi Andre

Do we know if this the same as in Australia?

I know in Australia we had some that we're just released for Australia as Ice Lolly (blue & white) and Australian Rules Footballer. I also have a feeling we used different names on some of the smurfs such as Prisoner became Convict.

Cheers
Kath

[André]

Good question Kath

I do not know if these smurfs were made in Hongkong, like the ones sold in Australia or made in Germany, like the ones sold in UK and Holland.

They also had a house for sale. 30001.

and a lot of other items like aprons, badges, iron-on transfers, lp records, single records etc.

What are the markings on the smurfs sold in the BP bags??? I don´t Think they were HK?

[Lia]

The markings in the BP bags are w.germany

[André]

Thanks Lia

Do you know if the bags always looks the same?

I mean did they make any changes during the time these were sold.

[Lia]

I have never seen different yellow bags André!
South-african text on one side and english text on the other side

(Of course, the green BP bags for the rugby smurf are a different story)

[The Smurf Collector]

I read somewhere that BP gave away smurfs with petrol while the Moscow Olympics were on in June 1980. This makes sense for the Northern hemisphere countries such as Holland, UK etc

Though I wonder if in Australia the smurfs were released earlier in the year, so the promotions would run over the Summer period. This would have worked for the Smurfee ice lolly (Icecream) that was released by Peters Icecream.

I have also seen a sticker promoting the Monte Carlo International for their tour in 1980 from January to April. The sticker included an image of a smurf waving a BP flag.

The Australian Rules football figurine may have come about in 1980 where Victoria (navy colours) played South Australia(red colours) played in the state of origin grand final in October 1980

I don't really know but would love to know more about smurfs in Australia.

Cheers
Kath

[André]

I will see what I can find about Australia Kath.

Another thing with the smurfs sold in South Africa is that the lover smurf 20044 was sold first time there in 14th february 1980 as a "valentine-release"

[André]

Here are some info backing up the previous posts about how the Schleichsmurfs were sold in South Africa.

In the first post I explained how the smurf order form looked like for the BP dealers in South Africa.

If you look at this information Pierre gave us from the BP Archive about the Rugby smurfs sold in South Africa in April 1980. Well the document was from April 1980.

There you can read this about the smurfs they already had for sale in South Africa.

They tell they then had 26 smurfs.

[André]

That also match the smurf order form from June 1980.

So therefore I can date when the smurfs probably were sold.

Since they have a space on the form I am pretty sure they just added new figurines like this:

First ones sold when they started the promotion( I do not know the exact date the promotion started in South Africa, but I do for most other countries). However I am sure it was around very late 1979 or very early 1980. These were the ones sold then:

20002 Normal smurf
20005 Gold smurf
20006 Scholar smurf
20009 Drummer smurf
20012 Mechanic smurf
20013 Guitar smurf
20014 Sunbather smurf
20018 Crying smurf
20023 Bass guitar smurf
20024 Latern smurf
20031 Postman smurf
20034 Smurfette
20038 Singer smurf
20040 Gift smurf
20045 Artist smurf

As you see these are in articlenumber order.

Then on the form they added these ones:

20001 Papa smurf
20017 Mirror smurf
20020 Gymnast smurf
20021 Sleepwalker smurf
20022 Auther smurf
20044 Lover smurf

Since I know the lover smurf was sold in February 1980, I am pretty sure those were added then.

The next ones added on the form Before a space are these:

20003 Spaceman smurf
20004 Winter smurf
20008 Spy smurf
20030 Olympic smurf
20035 Soccer smurf

All these smurfs are together 26. So that means these are the first 26 smurfs they mention in the rugby promotion in April 1980. So that means these were added in April.

That also goes well with the last ones I know the date for. They were added last and were new for June 1980:

20010 Prisoner smurf
20011 Laughing smurf
20015 naughty smurf ( same as not hearing smurf)
20016 Judge smurf
20019 Flower smurf


So for those interested in the chronology of how and where the smurfs were sold here you have some new dates.

[Arno]

That is very interesting. As always, I don't know why you are hiding your original documentation !? Did you visit BP archives ?
Well, it would be great to know if they are marked Hong Kong or West Germany. Pictures on the BP catalogs could help, no ? You must hve a look at them.

[André]

Hi Arno,

I do not know if the ones sold were hongkongmarked or w Germany marked. Most likely they were marked W germany in the beginning just like the BP ones sold in Australia, where a few smurfs were yellow dotted smurfs in the beginning.

Maybe they could have used Hongkongsmurfs also but it seems on the ones we have found in the bags that they were usually germanmade.

Regarding the Pictures I have I get approval from BP for each Picture if I want to show any of them. But I will ask them if I can show a few pictures here, for example regarding the Australia smurfday. When they started the Campaign there in 9th of september 1979. And also the Pictures about the English soccerplayers made for the FA cup semifinalists in 1979 and in those teamcolours.

[Smurfysmurf]

Andre, if it helps getting approval you could put them in the variation section which is viewable by members only. We created the section so that members feel more at ease when sharing pictures of their collection as we were having some issues back then with rare smurfs suddenly appearing en masse on ebay once a picture was posted on here. I don't think we have much of an issue anymore since this section was crated