It was Kenner’s usual operating practice through SW, ESB and ROTJ to have at least two vendors producing figures in unison for every character. However, the four Cantina creatures are an oddity within the Star Wars line. The Kenner versions were only manufactured from a single Asian vendor: “Smile” in Hong Kong.

It was only in the Kenner 65bk ROTJ era, that PBP received the moulds from Smile, and a second vendor was temporarily brought into the picture.

These Cantina characters all have two moulds (Snaggletooth has three thanks to the incorrect blue Snag version), so it’s a curiosity why Kenner chose to limit production of all the Cantinas to a single vendor. POTF era aside, Boba Fett and the Power Droid are the other single source outliers, and being relatively adjacent to the Cantinas in the order of release may explain Kenner’s thinking at the time.

So that said, what’s the update?

The previous understanding was the moulds went to PBP where they were temporarily altered to blob out the COOs, with the resulting scarred out COO figures all originating at PBP. We now know this isn’t the case. It seems that after PBPs short lease was fulfilled, the moulds were returned back to Smile in Hong Kong where production resumed. The temporary metal filler PBP used to blob out the Hong Kong COOs was left intact and Smile continued to produce figures that also featured scarred COOs, or in some cases altering them further to permanently remove the COO.

Snaggletooth COO v3.2
Hammerhead COO v3.2
Walrus Man COO v3.2
Greedo COO v3.2

I’m presenting this info, but I’d like to entirely credit Jon Meade for researching and reporting to us the likelihood of the moulds returning from Spain, and the late wave of Kenner figures with the scarred COOs.

A late credit to Nick Eppinga for first presenting us with the Hammerhead F1 Smile NCOO which is now included in the latest 3.2 update.