Hi, Christy...I have no much info...It is my opinion, but it is a welll reasoned opinion...
You know, for example, the yellow variation of shiver, pirate, skater etc etc were sold in England...I suppose it was a common thing: a concrete colour variation for a concrete market. Schleich distributed most of the orange mechanic they made in spanish market (the same for white helmet american football). When they began to deal with the spanish manufacturer to produce smurfs here, the spanish guys used the orange mechanic Schleich distributed in our country, as reference...And this is the origin (always in my opinion) of the mistake of considering them as cnt...I bought one of mine when I was a child, and I bought it at the same store I usually bought smurfs. I have asked recently again to the seller of the old store (it is open still...the seller was a collector time ago and he is called Joaquín too
), and he said me that he bought smurfs only from ONE distibutor...It has no sense that the same Schleich manufacturer sold smurfs with license and smurfs without license...
If you think carefully, most of the orange mecahnis we have a and we see on ebay are from Spain, but it doesn´t mean they are all cnts. It is true they are all from the spanish markets, but some of them are licensed and some others aren´t. The licensed has the same size than green one, and the same quality, and the markings Wgermany/peyo...the unlicensed are smaller than the regular green one, different quality, and has no markings or a very bad written(hard to read) Schleich emblem and peyo
ONLY MY OPINION from my own and old experience