Fake 2006 Halloween Smurfs

The Summer of 2007 saw a question about markings turn into something of a discovery. A smurf collector had noticed that some smurfs she had bought had the markings "Made In Chian" and asked if this was a spelling mistake. Well it turned out to be a very important question because it made us aware of the sudden surge of 2006 Halloween smurfs that seemed to be flooding the market from Hong Kong. Because of this spelling mistake it got smurf collectors asking questions and it soon became apparent that these Halloween smurfs were indeed fakes, very similar in terms of quality and quantity to the fake Easter smurfs that we had seen emerge from Hong Kong a few years ago.

The smurfs themselves are well made, some are slightly smaller than the originals, there are noticable differences in terms of paint colours and quality and missing features such as shading on the Ghost but the main give away with these fakes are the markings. Firstly the spelling mistake "Made In Chian" but actually more importantly, the genuine figures have a "Made In Germany" marking! Also, when the sealed bags of these were first opened there was a very strong smell of paint. Like the Easter smurfs, the material is very hard and at least for now, they are being sold in complete sets of 8 from Hong Kong, quite often at very low prices.. Of course it will be more difficult to spot these once they start being sold in different countries and as the sets are split up.

The smurfs are being sold with tags which look very similar to the genuine tags although the colour of the blue circle is darker on the fakes and the circle is overlapping the barcode numbers whereas it does not on the genuine tags.

We intend to contact Schleich and IMPS about these fakes and will of course let you know if we hear any more information.

Article Written December 2007