Judo smurf

[Ember]

A guy I'm crazy for bought me this judo (or karate?) smurf, but I can't tell wich variant is it... why "made in Germany" and not West Germany since it's from 1981? Mumble... can you help me?

[pvcblue]

Originally Posted by Ember

A guy I'm crazy for bought me this judo (or karate?) smurf, but I can't tell wich variant is it... why "made in Germany" and not West Germany since it's from 1981? Mumble... can you help me?

Judo is not necessarily from 1981, that is the year the mold was made and it was first issued, but the most recent ones from 2008-2009 also say 1981 on them as well.

[PonySmurf]

it looks like one of the current "re-casts" and not the vintage one... but I am not positive. I think I have this one as well and it looks like it came right off the assembly line! haha... mr. Bill or Pete will know for sure.

[Ember]

Ooh strange, I've seen the re-issued smurfs but I remember they had the real datations. I want to check in the shop! So how can I understand how old is my smurf?

[bill walters]

More than likely it's been made reciently if you got it in a store.

[Ember]

No, my friend bought it in a street market...

[bill walters]

I don't think you will be able to tell when it was actually made. All of the molds were made in 1981. I am not sure if they make a new one if one breaks or just use the one's that are left. I seem to remember someone saying they don't make new one's, but am not positive about that.
P.S. I have two of the Judo Smurfs and was just curious if they had the same date. I just discovered that one of them is fake. It has no markings at all. The eye brow's and eye lids arn't painted. The mouth is painted but badly. (the real one's mouth is very sharp). It is a couple of mm shorter than the real one. And there is a mold mark running across the bottom and up the side and over the hat. Not sure where I got it though. Some people keep track of that.

[Schleich]

Just checked all 4 of my Judo Smurfs,(20134) and they were all made in Hong Kong. From what I've found, and I could be wrong, if it says W. Germany it was made before the 'wall' fell, and Germany after that. (the 'wall' fell in 1989)

[Smurfysmurf]

This Judo smurf is from recent production.
Schleich still produces smurfs (right now it's just about 40 smurfs) each year and Judo smurf was part of the current production until recently (or may still be part of the production now).

Since your smurf has the markings of Germany instead of W. Germany, I am 100% sure that it is from the recent production. Like others said...the year 1981 is the year Schleich first produced the smurf. As far as I know, the smurfs will always show the year of the year that mold was made, so recent molds (like the actors) will have recent years on them

It doesn't really affect the value of the smurf. Since it's a current production line smurf it's not really one of the rarer smurfs no matter if it was actually made in 1981 or was made in 2009.

Schleich came out with a new marking in 2009 (which includes the full Schleich address) so since your's doesn't have that new marking, I'd say it was made sometimes before 2009...but I don't think you will be able to pinpoint the exact year this particular figurine was made. Actually there is a way to pinpoint it going by the size of the CE and that there is no "made in China" on it..but I personally haven't really bothered going that deeply into the markings yet.

Hope this helps

[Ember]

Thank you all very much!

Of course it's not a problem if the smurf is from 2009 or 1981 I'm just getting crazy because I can't really understand how old is it and why Germany and not "Hong Kong" like it's written on the catalogue.

But the important thing is that at least we decided it's made in Germany after 1989 but before 2009