I recently won a European exclusive MISB Storm Shadow v.1 on eBay from a seller in France.

http://i8.ebayimg.com/03/i/03/d1/89/b3_1_b.JPG

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=5968496449

I know I probably paid too much for it, but Storm Shadow v.1 is my favorite GI Joe figure and I had never seen or heard of one being sold bagged like this until this auction.

After I received the figure, I examined it closely and noticed that it was nearly identical to my other '84 Storm Shadows except for one thing. All the original Storm Shadow v.1 figures in my collection have copyright "1984 Hasbro" and "Made in Hong Kong" on the waist piece. The Storm Shadow figure I received only has "Made in Hong Kong" on it.

I searched YoJoe for international figures and came across this 1988 Belgium promtional booklet that advertised for a mail-away Storm Shadow:

http://www.yojoe.com/international/belgium/images/2zwartachter.jpg

As far as I can tell, this is the only promotional offer that was advertised for Storm Shadow v.1 and it would explain why the "1984 Hasbro" was removed.

If any you guys can provide me with more info on this, I would be greatly appreciative.

I have quite a lot of these mail aways still mip lying around. They are indeed Belgian exclusives. They were available only at the Belgian Hasbro fanclub. It was located in Charleroi (Belgium) and you had to send flagg points as the other mail aways where available. They are pretty exclusive and very rare, but the figures are identical to others. I have some patches and pins from that club as well...

aww man i want one.

I am aware of these (as I have them):

MIP Payload v2
MIP Keel Haul
MIP Hooded CC
MIP SGT Slaughter (marauders edition)
MIP Storm Shadow
MIP Super Trooper

1 patch (check out my site for a pic)
1 pin (this was available at other mail in services too I believe)

don't forget to share those Kevin.

Nice find by the way.

Yep, I will make sure that I get you some pics.

Very nice find. I would love to have one. He is also one of my favorite figures.

Sorry to bring this old thread back up. Was the "Made in Hong Kong" waists only found on the Belgian mail-away Storm Shadow?

I have found 3 different waists on my own Storm Shadow figures:

"Made in Hong Kong" (I have 2 of these)

"(C) Hasbro 1984
Made in Hong Kong" (I also have 2 of these)

"Made in China
H-1" (I have 6 of these)

I have also found two different backpacks:
One with many details on the back (I have 3 of these), and one with a plain back without any details (I have 6 of these).
Though I really don't know which figures those backpacks came with originally (a wild guess would be, that the undetailed ones came with the "Made in China" Storm Shadows, as I have most of them in my collection).

I can't take any pictures at the moment though, as I don't have my camera at home.

Pictures!

3 different COO's on the Storm Shadows:

http://img69.imageshack.us/img69/663/01frontr.th.jpg (http://img69.imageshack.us/i/01frontr.jpg/) http://img338.imageshack.us/img338/5979/02back.th.jpg (http://img338.imageshack.us/i/02back.jpg/)

Close-up of the different COO's on the waist pieces (the "MADE IN CHINA"-one was quite difficult to capture, sorry about that):

http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/605/03comparison.th.jpg (http://img515.imageshack.us/i/03comparison.jpg/)

Different backpacks:

http://img691.imageshack.us/img691/8476/04backpacks.th.jpg (http://img691.imageshack.us/i/04backpacks.jpg/)

Different backpacks (close-up):

http://img687.imageshack.us/img687/8168/scomparison.th.jpg (http://img687.imageshack.us/i/scomparison.jpg/)

Short swords. As you can see, the one on the far left has the "ring" (where it has been seperated from the sprue) on the other side as opposed to the other swords:

http://img502.imageshack.us/img502/6905/06shortswords.th.jpg (http://img502.imageshack.us/i/06shortswords.jpg/)

Long swords. No differences in the two I have, but I guess one exists with the "ring" on the opposing side too, just like the short swords.

http://img831.imageshack.us/img831/9316/07longswords.th.jpg (http://img831.imageshack.us/i/07longswords.jpg/)

Nunchuks & bows. I cannot really seem to find any difference in these, but there might be one too.

http://img708.imageshack.us/img708/3199/09nunchuks.th.jpg (http://img708.imageshack.us/i/09nunchuks.jpg/) http://img843.imageshack.us/img843/952/08bows1.th.jpg (http://img843.imageshack.us/i/08bows1.jpg/)