F is for Follow-up - LLL is for Locati

One of the lesser competitors to Kinder who seem to come and go, this lot have gone (I think) although traces of them remain on the internet and they may have been swallowed by another firm, my Italian isn't that good, while I haven't the time to translate what's left on half dead web-pages or Google-Earth results!

I posted a couple of figures which had appeared in passing a while ago and then Chris Smith sent us one, which I've said is probably Kinder, but I'm not sure, well now I'm at least sure this one (below) is Locati, but that doesn't mean some are not Kinder issues too!

The figure in question, the three previously seen are more flesh-coloured, or light-tan with a less-glossy surface. He comes with a plug-in loin-cloth/flap, a totemic staff to hold and a lovely headdress with buffalo horn adornment.

However he and the two previously-seen figures all have a hole in the forehead, which is clearly to take the other headdress illustrated in the consumer slip (hidden by his furry slip-over one), and (further to my previous comments on these) I'm still convinced one of mine has a little flat drum which locates where this chap has his flap, a belief which is reinforced by the fact that there's a perfectly good sculpted flap under the plug-in one!

Yeah! Apologies for the blurry shot but he's gone away again so I couldn't re-shoot it!

A close-up of the figure, my suspicion is that the figures come from a  third party like Res-RP, Giodi or Dulcop and were carried by Locati and Kinder or someone else (Aras, Balaban, Cose Progetti, Czapp, LZ-Ziani, Marajà, Menotti, Metro, RK-Rübezahl - There's dozens of them!), with the one sculpt in two sizes and various plug-in, slip-on or other accessories like the wedge-in staff, here?

I have three other Locati gifts, so suspect these were the edible chocolate bears I bought in the Post Office in North Camp back in the late 1990's/early-2000's? It's all noted in the archive and I vaguely remember four of them, I have the wrappers somewhere in the archive too, as they were all different colours and metallic foil so quite pretty and worth hanging-on to as packaging. They were in a counter display box, two layers in threes or fours giving a 24 or 32-count for the whole box?

The Flamingo is very good and real 'Kinder' fare, while the teeny-tiny construction bricks (in a frangible eraser-rubber with polyethylene joint-wedges) is an old-old (1970's) Kinder design (I think), while the playtime milk-bottle (“Thatcher, Thatcher - milk snatcher”) is a crayon, another common Kinder trope. Were they [Locati] actually clearing old Kinder stock?

These three all state 'Made in the Philippines' while the Indian warrior is clearly claimed for Italy, where Locati are/were based in Magnago? Were old Kinder tools bought by a Philippine maker, or are they pure knock-offs?

A comparison with a Kinder Ostrich, Emu . . . (?) Big Bird! Kinder have done several flamingo's over the years, including one as good as- (or even the same as-) the Locati one, but here the Locati has the edge over the slightly lumpy and simpler Kinder model.

The Giocattoli Sicuri cartouche on two of the consumer-slips is the Italian toy-safety certifier, based in Laigueglia, Italy and formed in 1978.