Did you collect Smurfs from National Garages in the 70s?

[Ousetunes 10]

Own up guys and gals!

 

How many of you used to collect the little blue and white rubber Smurfs that you used to be able to get from National petrol stations in the late 1970s?

 

Did you collect the entire set? I only had a few including the spaceman whose head was encased in a glass dome.

 

I seem to recall there was a display case in the shop at National petrol stations, a table with a plastic dome inside which were all the different types of Smurf. The station on Ecclesall Road which is in a state of dereliction at the time of writing, was one such place you could get them.

 

Question: Did you have to buy them or were they 'purchased' with the amount of petrol you bought?

 

And weren't they finally removed due to the amount of lead used in the paint?

 

I'm talking 1978 here. Anyone still got theirs?!

[Banjo Griner 10]

I was mad about them for a while as a kid. When I was 10 we moved to another city and my mum (God bless her) made me give away all my toys - including a massive collection of Star Wars figures and original Smurfs.

 

We still laugh about how many thousands they'd be worth today.

[Agent Orange 11]

I was born towards the end of the 70's so I didn't collect them, but my granddad did and seem to remember him having them in the early 80's too.

[northernboy 13]

Yes, I was only a little kid and I had loads of them, still got some in the loft - wonder if they are worth anything now...

[hottie77 10]

gosh i've got loads of these, altho i cant remember where i collected them from... are they worth owt???

[poppins 10]

I kept every one of my sons Smurfs, I cleared out the attic and gave them to him when he got married.

[neeeeeeeeeek 10]

I have got a big bg of the bleeders... somewhere....

[Banjo Griner 10]

If they're in good nick they're worth TONS. Honestly, I saw a program about it recently that made my mum cry.

[Agent Orange 11]

Further to my post regarding my granddad collecting these things, I discovered a National keyring the other day with a Smurf on it. Brought back some memories

[craigmason 10]

If you type "vintage smurfs" into ebay there are 44 of them on there most of them for £1

[Julie Dale 0]

You even got them free for buying gas at National Garage Petrol stations, who had the slogan “service with a smurf,” which, because of the vagueness of the Smurf language, could’ve meant anything. Unfortunately the demand for Smurf figures was so high that at one point, the manufacturers got them painted overseas in Hong Kong, forgetting that overseas lead paint requirements were much lower than the usual European regulations.
Suddenly people all over the country were terrified that kids were going to get lead poisoning from putting Smurfs in their mouths (how stupid did they think kids were back then?). Of course, no kids ended up dead by Smurfs, although it did lead to a parody song called “Lick a Smurp For Christmas (All Fall Down)” by Father Abraphart and the Smurps… which thankfully doesn’t exist online.

 

copied from another article.

Edited June 2, 2019 by Julie Dale
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