Even as an adult I learned that the company who made these never meant for kids to get a free sucker if you turn this in.
Yet when I was a kid our local convince store did honor this. If you got the Native American with the star I could turn it in for a free one.
I heard this as a kid too. I remember saving up ~10 of them to mail in.
I did get back a letter explaining that it wasn’t a thing and a few coupons for buying more. So, still a win?
I never mailed mine in, my local grocery store would trade them for a free tootsie pop