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BP Netherlands history

1965-1983

According to Schleich the very first smurfs made by Schleich was made for BP.

But it was not until 1969 BP got the license for the smurfs in Netherlands. Here is how it started.

Here is an article in the BP Shield magazine from April 1970.

Before the 1969 campaign started we know that Schleich already had made Normal,
Gold, Angry, Spy, Drummer and Prisoner. All these could have been used as give-aways.

In the beginning of the campaign the price was 50 cents each.

All smurfs sold until 1972 had the same price.

The ones made in 1972 and sold after that were sold for 60 cents.

So all smurfs Schleich made before they lost the license to make
smurfs in 1974 were sold by BP Netherlands.
But Spy and Gold was only used before 1969 in the Netherlands.

1975

When only Bully had the license to make smurfs, BP still got them for their stations.

Then the price was 75 cents.

1976

In 1976 the price for one smurf was 1 Guilder.

This was also the year they made the BP shelves.

As you see all old Schleich smurfs except Spy and Gold were sold, 21 smurfs. And
then the 9 first smurfs made by Bully. The six Waldbaur smurfs ( Cake, Tiroler,
Shy, Hammer, Laughing and Digger) were not sold. So on bottom shelf are the smurfs
that were manufactured then but not sold by BP in 1976.

1977

This year they made a poster of the 34 smurfs they had for sale.
Poet smurf presented his 33 friends on this poster.

And here is the advert for it.

In 1977 the price was a bit higher 1,20 Guilder.

And as you can see Beer, Gift, Jester and Painter were added before April 1977.

In august they added Spy. So all old Schleich smurfs except Gold were now sold.

BP Netherlands was also selling Schleich items in 1977. They were very involved when
getting Schleich back in producing smurfs. That is also one of the reason why all old
Schleich boxes has dutch text besides english, german and french.

At the end of 1977 you could buy these 37 smurfs at BP in the Netherlands.

1978

One big difference between BP Netherlands and National Benzole UK was that in the
Netherlands you got both the new Bully smurfs and the new Schleich smurfs.
In UK you could only get Schleich made smurfs.

The price went up to 1,55 Guilder in 1978.

1979

BP got new smurfs from Bully also the last year they made smurfs.

10 years smurf campaign in Holland in 1979.

1980

This BP Champion smurf is listed with year 1980 in the BP Archives.

1983

I think the number 75 has to do with the 75 year anniversary of BP.
Then 1983 should be the correct year??

Could have been a promo after BP Netherlands had stopped selling smurfs??