| Copyright 2009 www.hiddeninthewoods.com - Reproduction of any material on this site is prohibited without written permission. Smurfs and the distinct Smurf likeness is a registered trademark of Peyo - License I.M.P.S. Hidden in the Woods is not affiliated with Studio Peyo or I.M.P.S. |
| Smurf Collectors Club Letters |
| Before the Internet and smurf forum, there was the Smurf Collectors Club, which early on turned into the Smurf Collectors Club International. It's founder, Suzanne Lipschitz, started to issue quarterly newsletters in 1986. It is amazing how much information she was able to amass by snail mail and with the help of other smurf collectors and I am not sure how she was able to keep track of it. Karen from New Jersey sent me all of her letters and it is a thrill to read thru them. A lot of the information is not news to me, thanks to countless websites and a fabulous smurf forum that contains a lot of the same information and more. However, reading thru the letters, has given me a small insight into the beginnings of smurf collecting and a nostalgia for the good old days, when collectors were eagerly anticipating the new arrival of the latest letter to show them they weren't the only ones collecting smurfs. When you scroll thru the letters, don't focus on the bad quality of the pictures (websites show much clearer pictures of the rare smurfs) but imagine what it felt like being a collector back then and seeing the picture of a rare smurf you knew you would probably never own. I have never met or known Suzanne, who passed away in April 2004, but I think she would be thrilled to see where smurf collecting has gone and what opportunities are out there now to share our collections. The SCCI letter pages on this website are dedicated to her memory and hard work. I decided to put them on my website, because it would be a shame if they were lost and if not everybody who is interested has access to them. Thank you to Karen from New Jersey who sent all of them to me for free. The letters are in pdf format and some are quite long, so please allow a few minutes for downloading them, depending on the speed of your computer. To view these forms you need Adobe Acrobat. If you currently do not have Adobe installed, you can download a free copy here The letters started out being about 2-3 pages long and soon were extended to around 10 pages or longer. Each letter includes the following sections: Dear Smurf Collector Collector's Comments Buy-Sell-Trade Variations Update Auction Block and updates and news on new discoveries SCCI Letter Index 1- 20 SCCI Letter Index 21- 40 SCCI Letter Index 41-60 Some of the rarest smurfs, the SCCI smurfs, were released by the club and made available for a small price to renewing members and new members. In order to become a member of the club you had to pay a small yearly fee and not only the SCCI newsletters, but also brochures, updates and much more was available to you |
| Steve Parkes, a smurf collector from England, has all the SCCI smurfs and allowed me to use this picture on my site to show what they are look like |
| Steve P.'s SCCI smurfs |
| The Good Luck SCCI smurf, On the right, you can see the certificate that should accompany any SCCI smurf you are considering buying |
