For The Smurf Of Money

"Smurfing In The Money" is a story event that took place a few years before Empath's final return from Psychelia in the EMPATH: The Luckiest Smurf story series. It is an adaptation of the comic book story "The Finance Smurf" set in that particular universe.

Plot Summary
Empath finds among Trader Smurf's collection a gold coin with Papa Smurf's likeness. From there Trader tells how this coin came about.

About a few years before Empath's final return from Psychelia, Papa Smurf's laboratory had exploded, and the village leader was rendered unconscious from working on an experiment. Brainy, who claimed that he could read Latin, was unable to translate the writing of the formula, so the Smurfs sent Trader to visit Homnibus to interpret it. Homnibus discovers that Papa Smurf was using sulfur in the formula and thus he needs a remedy. However, he cannot yet create the remedy because he is out of lime stipules, so he sends his servant Oliver into the village to buy some more. Trader goes with Oliver and learns about money and how the finance system works.

Trader returns to the Smurf Village with the completed remedy for Papa Smurf. He is so eager to tell Papa Smurf about his plan to bring a finance system into the Smurf Village, but Smurfette says he is too sick to listen, so Trader decides to bring it into effect as a surprise for when Papa Smurf gets well.

First he gets Painter to draw a sketch of Papa Smurf's likeness unto a circle, then he has Sculptor engrave the likeness into a mold. Then after finding a pile of "worthless yellow rocks" in the mines that Miner has dug up, Trader has Handy melt the gold and pour it into the mold to make coins. A day later, he holds a conference to show the Smurfs the new system of money that he wants to put into effect. Though most of the Smurfs have no idea on how it actually works, they decide to give it a try, with Brainy being the only Smurf opposed to the idea.

At the start, every Smurf is given 100 gold coins, with Trader (given the appellation of "Finance Smurf") getting 200 since he was responsible for introducing the system. At first, the Smurfs find the system funny and go to Trader to find out the fair amount of how much things should be charged. But over time, problems began to emerge: some Smurfs such as Greedy, Biscotti, Farmer, and Handy were actually getting richer, while Smurfs like Jokey, Poet, and Harmony had to sell things they normally did for fun.

Trader sets up a bank where he loans money to Smurfs who are out of money for a 10 percent interest payback, while offering the richer Smurfs an opportunity to earn 6 percent interest. Farmer initially refuses to hand his money over to Trader and instead goes out into the forest to bury his money, but as he does, he sees Gargamel approaching. In his flight back to the village, Farmer leaves behind a gold coin, and Gargamel upon discovering it realizes that the Smurfs now have gold.

Farmer realizes that he has left his gold coin in the forest and goes back out to find it when the Smurf River Bridge he crosses collapses and he falls into the river. Trader offers to finance the repair work in exchange for a toll to be paid for crossing it. Handy goes to get a quote of how much the repair materials will cost and finds that Carpenter will give him oak boards for 1500 coins, while Sneaky Smurf offers him fir boards for 1000 coins along with a bribe.

With the bridge repaired, Farmer goes back out to find his lost coin, only to find a bunch of fake gold coins left behind by Gargamel that lure him into a trap set up by the wizard. He sends Corbelius the crow to deliver a message to the Smurfs demanding them to appear at the Great Oak at dawn with all their gold. Papa Smurf upon awakening has a Smurf spy on Gargamel to discover his plans, and from what he learns, the village leader takes a few other Smurfs out into the forest to alter the trap Gargamel has set up for them so that it captures him instead. The Smurfs then proceed to Gargamel's castle where they rescue Farmer from Azrael. Upon their return to the village, Papa Smurf declares that there shall be a party, but Trader then asks who will pay for it, so at the end there's no party.

Papa Smurf realizes that the rebuilding of his laboratory will cost him money, but then he also has to pay Smurfette, Greedy, and a few other Smurfs for their services while he was sick and so ends up becoming poor. Trader suggests that Papa Smurf could charge his little Smurfs for whatever services he would offer them, which Papa Smurf soundly refuses. He then takes a walk through the village and sees what the money system is doing to his little Smurfs, as there are now fights and stress due to the constant work of having to make money.

One day Hefty decides that he has enough of the money system and packs up to leave the village, saying he's going someplace where there will be no more money. Handy sees this and realizes he was better off doing things for others when he didn't have to think about money, choosing to go with Hefty to build a new village elsewhere. The other Smurfs hear this and decide they too had enough of the money system and also pack up to leave the village. Trader tells the Smurfs that they can't leave because they owe him money, so their response is to throw all their money back to him. Trader sees Papa Smurf leaving and tells him to do something about it, but Papa Smurf tells Trader that he's leaving the entire village to Trader to do with as he sees fit.

At first Trader gloats that he now owns the entire village along with all the money, but then he realizes that with no Smurfs around to do anything with, everything that he now has is entirely worthless, and so he races out into the forest to get the Smurfs to come back, promising to give them back everything and to end the money system completely. With the end of the money system, the Smurfs decide to turn the gold coins into musical instruments. However, Trader chose to keep one gold coin as a souvenir.