Featured Figurine:
"Fafnir" the Dragon
 This dragon was produced by Schleich in 1991 as part of their line of "Crazy Friends." These were PVC figurines with wires inserted so that they could be bent, and hold their new pose. There were four figures in the line; a dragon, a bird, a monkey with banana and a cow. This is NOT a Smurf piece, but it remains popular with Smurf collectors.
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 However, the dragon is often misrepresented as "Fafnir," the dragon appearing in a comic-style cartoon book entitled "Johann und Pfiffikus - Im verwuenschten Land" (German) or "Les pays maudit" (French). In the "Johann und Pfiffikus" (Johann and Peewit) stories, the Smurfs often appear playing a supporting role. A quick comparison reveals that the real Fafnir had ears, wings, no antennae and an arrow-shaped tip on his tail. The Crazy Friends Dragon has no wings, ears or arrow-tipped tail and a pair of antennae. More importantly, this piece was simply never purported by Schleich to be a Smurf-related piece.
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  While the piece is not a Smurf collectible, Smurf collectors desire it as it fits in well with a Smurf display, and looks great with Johann and his sword! There are several versions of the "Fafnir" dragon. There is a green version with red antennae, red spikes down his back and a red snout and feet.. There is also a version with a dark green body, and lighter green spikes. It is unclear which version is rarer. The red version may be found with removable legs (they are stuck like a plug into holes in the body) or with glued legs.
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 The version with green spikes is found plain, and in a promotional version, with "Hoechst" stamped on its side. Hoechst is a group of international companies operating in the life sciences and industry, it has been reported that these were used to promote their plastics & dyes/pigments divisions in the 80's. This predates their first appearance in Schleich catalogs; then again, 20417 Bodybuilder Smurf appeared as the "Sport & Fitness" promo before it was added to the regular line and appeared in Schleich catalogs. It is not known how many of the Hoechst promo dragons were produced, but it seems that the piece is found more often with the Hoechst marking than without.
(Back to Featured Figurines Index)
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