[XoioX2000]

Yes, them again! :) How many times have we discussed them?

I would like to make a little experiment with you about them: (only with the ones with black shoes)

Could you please have a look at your Italian Footies collections and check for the following:

1/ Has your "Italia" one got matt black shoes?

2/ Compare the black shoes of all your Italian Footies and list the ones which have black shoes matching the "Italia" ones. (ie "matt" and not "glossy" black).

3/ Please could you list here the ones you find with matt black (if any).

I do not want to lead the answers so I would like you to let me know what you find first if that's ok... but I will tell you what I have found shortly!

Cheers,

David

[Guest]

Sorry Davina, i dont own any, but i can't wait to see what you are up to ?

Good Luck

[Smurfysmurf]

Do you mean the Forzas??? Mine don't have black shoes but I can't wait to hear what you are up to also

[Rachel]

Hi David, I shall certainly check mine out tomorrow and let you know the results.

[Syd Smurf]

All of my smurfs have been packed away for months but looking at my site on this page I seem to have one (Italia) with black painted shoes.

It's sometimes hard to tell from a pic if the black shoes are matte or shiny especially under the lights I use.

Dyar

[XoioX2000]

@Smurfysmurf: Yeap I mean the Forzas...

@Rachel: Can't wait to tell me what you have!

@Syd: Yeap that's the Italia one on your page Andrew: The others you have are the unpainted ones.

We have agreed with Tintin that there is a total of 41 different ones, including the Italia one and a variation on Forza Bari (so that's 39 clear different ones). Most of them seem to be available in both painted and unpainted shoes... Just trying to get to the bottom of the painted shoes business.

[Rachel]

Hi David, here are mine with black shoes. I do have a few without shoes painted so if you need to know about these, give me a shout.

Italia - matt black
Forza Parma - shiny black
Forza Milan - shiny black
Forza Roma - shiny black
Forza Brescia - shiny black
Forza Catania - shiny black
Forza Palermo - shiny black

All mine except the Italia seem to have a shiny black paint on shoes. Generally the paint on them is shiny except for the writing which I believe has been printed on. Some of the PVC seems shinier on some of the smurfs eg. Italia and Roma compared to others, I don't know if means anything.

I will look forward to hearing your theories on these as I have often wondered about them. If it helps, I bought most of mine about three or four years ago except for the Italia which I bought last year.

[paolo]

I have only the FORZA JUVE Smurf, so I cannot help.

[eggie smurf]

All mine are unpainted as well - I think I know what you're investigating but I will wait to see what you post after you gather the information

[Tintin]

Hi David

Stil busy with the kickers ??
A friend collector told me his have al shiny black shoes !!!
Don't know what you are up to, but i hope it helps !!

Tintin

[ctsmurf910]

I really wish I knew wgere to buy smurfs besides Ebay. This topic is quite interesting although with my small knowledge of smurf collecting I don't understand much. Are these regular size PVC's? did they come out for the world cup?

[Tintin]

Hi

These are soccer players in the colors based on actual teams from Italy.
The smurf they used is the 20068 model, but they have no markings at all. So i don't think they are officially, and i am not sure who made them when and why ???

Tintin

[XoioX2000]

Guys & Girls,

Thank you very much for having taken the time to do this.

First of all, let me tell you what I recall from a previous conversation about these, in a few points.

- Obviously created for the Football Forza Italian teams. (no secrets there)
- "Italia" one believed to be the first one made.
- Manufacturer started making them (in Italy), however a license was never obtained from IMPS so they could not be released in the shops and the project was shelved, including the stock already made up to that point.
- Only a few teams (maybe 5 at most) were completely painted.
- Years later, after the manufacturer shuts its doors, someone found the dead stock and sold it. It is unclear whether the stock was of painted parts or not.
- Lots of them on eBay since then.

Apart from Forza Inter (written on the front version) and Forza Bari (socks painted instead of short) I have all them with painted black shoes... so that's 39 out of 41.

Out of all of those, I have only 3 with matt painted shoes!
-Forza Italia
-Forza Milan
-Forza Cesena (Surgelati Orogel)

If you have any of these, could you check if yours are shiny or matt, please?

When you compare the quality of the paint job between the shiny and the matt ones, I do admit the shiny ones look rubbish: I would be interested to know what are the quality of yours if compared to the Italia one (if you have it).

Now this is what I think has happened:
- The stock found included a small number of teams which were painted, probably to demo to potential buyers (footie memorabilia shops maybe) or even IMPS.
- The rest were never painted.
- Some clever cloggs bought the dead stock, painted some of the remaining ones to create a set and sold it as such.
- Not many were available so the price went rapidly up
- More recently, in order to dump the rest of the stock, they started being sold unpainted, creating a "variation" that way, (catching people like me who thought there was 2 different sets).

So basically what I'm saying is that a large majority of the painted ones (shiny shoes) are fakes: By fake in this instance, I mean shoes painted by someone to make collectors believe there was a whole set. (as technically speaking of course, they are all fakes, or un-licensed I should say)

Now credit were credit is due (yeah yeah I know I was slagging off the DSK, but it doesn't mean I don't use it... with caution, mind you): In this instance the DSK IV shows only 7 Italian Footies on page 218, including the 3 mentionned above. When looking at the DSK pics, I would say the Dieci looks dodgy, but the others look all right: Could these be the 5 + the Italia one?

What do you think?

In any case, if you are like me and thought there was 2 sets of these and bought all of them with painted and unpainted shoes... well, we've been had I'm afraid... Ok the unpainted ones are ok, so we've only half been had... still... makes me feel Zblah...

[ctsmurf910]

yay I have not been had!!!

[eggie smurf]

In any case, if you are like me and thought there was 2 sets of these and bought all of them with painted and unpainted shoes... well, we've been had I'm afraid... Ok the unpainted ones are ok, so we've only half been had... still... makes me feel Zblah...

Well, on ebay lately, there have been a lot of auctions...and it seems there were far fewer painted shoes auctions than unpainted shoe ones. In fact, over my recent month-long footy fetish-craze, I tried to win some of the painted shoes as there were far less auctions for those. After reading this, I'm quite glad I didn't though.

I tend to agree with this theory of yours:

Some clever cloggs bought the dead stock, painted some of the remaining ones to create a set and sold it as such.

Some of the ones I have received do look "fake" and by fake I mean what you mean and not unlicensed...and I'm not talking about only the shoes but the actual paint on the shirts as well. A few of the names on the shirts are smudged or just very sloppy looking.

When did smurfing get so complicated?

[XoioX2000]

Eggie, your Forza Foggia one is very... foggy! I haven't seen that before.

But you are right about the quality in general: they are often not "great". Might be why IMPS never granted the license.

They are often worse after the shoes have been painted "Shiny" though: It is almost as if they have been packed with the paint still drying on some of them... Which as we know when making homemades, the paint can take a long time to dry properly...

In a way it's good: it does allow to spot when people are trying to sell something on flase pretences...

[Smurfysmurf]

Thank you for all this information..I admit I didn't even know there were some out with painted shoes, as all of mine are unpainted...

Before this thread I had no idea about these footy's so I have read everything with great interest and learned more about smurfing...

If I understand your post correctly, David..you have come to the conclusion that there is no complete set of painted footies....and only the mat shoes are the "genuine fakes" ( )... Would you consider the unpainted ones something like the raw in this case?

I agree with you STace, smurfing has become very complicated but I would also describe it with the words of a certain Vulcan "Fascinating, very Fascinating"...sorry, been watching too much Star Trek again lately

[XoioX2000]

Yeap... that's basically what I think: The real painted ones are matt and there is only a small number of them, the shiny are equivalent to homemade... and I like your parrallel with raw and the unpainted shoes.

[Syd Smurf]

I am not an expert on these either and only have a few of them so I have been reading and watching with interest David.

I do want to get a complete set of these one day just because they are smurfs and I think a nice set even though they weren't licensed.....like that has ever stopped us

All info on these has been very welcomed

Dyar

[Rachel]

Hi all, firstly I want to Thank David for taking a really good look at these smurfs as we really do know very little about them generally.

I have always had the impression that most, if not all of these kicker smurfs are unlicensed and I had also heard the story about the license not being granted and the old stock being bought up a few years ago. Off the top of my head I am fairly sure there were even fewer of these in the earlier DSKs and I will try and check this later.

It certainly makes sense what has been said about the "two sets" and the painted and unpainted shoes possibly being made up to give the impression of two sets. As mentioned, most of mine are shiny although apart from one or two, the painting on them does seem to be pretty good although maybe I just got lucky but I do have a couple that have black paint marks on them which would again support the theory about the shoes being painted at a later date and being stored poorly whilst the paint was still wet.

Something else I noticed about these was that when they first started appearing about 3 or 4 years ago, all were painted in their strip colours but then a huge about of complete blanks hit the market, begging I suppose to be painted up.

Stace, yours looks like the writing has been hand painted on whereas mine all look like the writing was printed or stamped on. Could we now be looking at the blank raw ones that have been painted recently???

Great discussion to follow as I am learning more about the kickers so when I eventually get around to adding them to Blue Imps I will be able to give some real info with them.