What do you remember of 2006? Perhaps it was Melbourne hosting the Commonwealth Games or the death of Steve Irwin. From a smurf prospective it was the release of the Halloween themed set by Schleich.
The Halloween set consisted of eight smurfs. When it was released it was given mixed reviews from collectors, some thought they looked nothing like smurfs and others loved them because of their creativity.
The Halloween set included the following smurfs:
20541 Dracula Smurf
20542 Ghost Smurf
20543 Werewolf Smurf
20544 Mummy Smurf
20545 Grim Reaper Smurf
20546 Frankenstein Smurf
20547 Witch Smurf
20548 Pumpkinhead Smurf
The markings to be found: Made in Germany (c) 2005 Peyo Schleich (S) Germany CE. There are no paint dots to be found with these smurfs.
For those of you who are new to collecting smurfs, the Halloween set were also available as fakes made in China. The fake smurfs are easy to spot as they are badly painted in dark blue shiny paint, have strange looking shaped eyes and are made out of a very hard material. Also these are generally sold really cheap.
What makes the fake smurfs interesting, is that the first batch released misspelt China on the smurfs – the marking read “Made in Chian”. So if you are lucky enough and like to collect fake smurfs you may find two different markings – Made in Chian and Made in China.
For unknown reasons the Halloween set was discontinued in 2008. This seems to be a common thread with Schleich since 2002 when they started releasing their new smurfs as part of a themed set. Most themed sets have only been made for two or three years.
At the recent Nuremberg Toy Fair Schleich displayed the re-release of the Halloween set available in it’s new display box (Schleich #20915) This was a little surprising as the Halloween set was not displayed in the 2016 Schleich catalogue. It is also unclear at the time of writing that if the Halloween smurfs will be sold with new markings or if Schleich will be using the old ones.
I quite like the Halloween themed smurfs as I like their cheeky expressions and love the bright colours they used to paint them. I guess it just shows that you don’t need to like Halloween to like the Halloween themed smurfs.
Keep on Smurfin
Kath B