Background info: In 1989, Hasbro began manufacturing Transformers in China, but rather than starting with the current line of Pretenders and Miromasters, they produced toys from 1984, 1985, and 1986. These Transformers were packaged in almost identical packaging to that of the original US releases (though, a couple came in Canadian, European, or Dutch packaging). The boxes had only tiny alternations and a small Chinese name sticker in the corner, making them very difficult to differentiate from the original releases, especially when the name sticker was removed. (This is unlike the G.I. Joe reissues in China from around the same time that used new packaging.) Chinese G1's continued to be released through 1995, with different toys being released each year, all of them almost identical to the original releases. There was much local demand at the time for the figures as the "Transformers" cartoon was first broadcast on local Shanghai TV (July 1988), then nationwide later in 1988.

For a long time collectors thought that Chinese releases were unlicensed knockoffs. However, they are in fact real Hasbro releases. There's lot of evidence to confirm this including, Takara selling the 1990's Chinese Aerialbots in Japan via mail order, and 1990's Chinese Transformers being found in the collection of a Hasbro employee. However most tellingly case finds have the expected Hasbro branding on the shipping cases. (These all differ to the replica unlicensed Chinese G1 counterfeits that started being manufactured in 2005. See the guides on this site.)

Along with being released in China, Taiwan and Hong Kong these G1's were imported into several countries to first keep meeting local market demand in the late 80's and to supplement the Gold boxed Classics that began in 1990. Markets such as the United Kingdom and Australia were behind the US market in terms of stock distribution so while Japan's production lines had moved on, producing popular earlier figures in China and shipping them out was a way to meet their demand - and also act as bridge into the Gold Boxed Classics line.


Other countries known to have sold the Chinese releases include the Netherlands, Korea, Portugal and New Zealand. The Constructions were a popular, high demand item in the United Kingdom as they were not released locally as part of the season 2 lineup, numerous carded figures have been found with Woolworths UK price tags(IGA constructions did make it to the UK but stock was much more limited), the four minibots could also be found at Woolworths, while in Australia there was a high concentration of Starscreams, Ramjets and Cyclonus figures - presumably to balance the Autobot heavy gold classics.

1987 toys released from 1993 (AKA Series 4)

=== Autobots ===  

• Fortress Maximus
• Headmasters: All four
• Targetmasters: Pointblank, Sureshot and Crosshairs
• Fastlane /Cloudraker
• Punch / Counterpunch

== Decepticons ===

• Scorponok
• Slugfest / Overkill
• Headmasters: Skullcruncher in Canadian Box "Broyeur", Mindwipe also in canadian box "Amnesiak". Weirdwolf was packaged in the U.S. box.
• Horrorcons: Apeface in Canadian Box "Gorillo". Snapdragon U.S. Box.
• Pounce / Wingspan
• Sixshot

1989 Japanese Transformers Victory toys reissued from 1995

• Multiforce: All three two packs (no giftset)
• Brainmaster: All three Roadcaesar cars individually (but not Star Saber)
• Breastforce: All six Liokaiser components, including Leozack. (Deszarus was not produced.)
• (Note: There are conflicting reports about Leozack. I've seen photographic evidence of his existence, but first-hand accounts suggest he was basically impossible to find. Perhaps the mold broke mid-way through production, causing only a small number to be released.)

As you can see, they released about half of the first five years of G1, plus several toys from the Japanese Transformers Victory series. With the Chinese stickers removed, they have been difficult to tell apart from the original releases.

A. Packaging differences

Series 1 through Series 4 Chinese releases have one very obvious tell. On the back of the box/card (under the box for Soundwave), where the copyright and manufacturing text is usually written, the part that says "Made and printed in Japan. Manufactured by Takara" (or some variant thereof) is omitted. Sometimes there is a black bar printed over it, sometimes it was carefully removed - it depends on the toy. But either way, all that is left is the Hasbro copyright part of the string. This is referred to as shortened copyright.

Here's an example of a 1980's Seaspray and a Chinese release Seaspray. Note how much shorter the copyright info is on the Chinese made figure.

C. Gold Boxed Classics.

The Gold Boxed classics that were released in Europe and Australasia were manufactured in Nanhai County, Foshan City, very likely the same factory as the chinese packaged G1s as the stickers on the back roughly translate correctly.

The first wave of classics released in 1990 included the Aerialbots, Stunticons and six Classic Hero Autobot cars. All of these used the same mold as the chinese released G1's.

The 1991 classics were Dinobots (Grimlock, Sludge and Snarl), Optimus Prime, Sideswipe and Tracks, Throttlebots, Protectobots, Combaticons and the Triplechangers.(Astrotrain/Octane and Sandstorm/Springer).

All of these except the combaticons, throttlebots, Octane and Sandstorm were earlier released for the chinese market in G1 styled packaging.

Octane and Sandstorm have been found with their chinese name stickers on their gold boxes, so it was likely their first release into the chinese market. Both of these have blocked manufacturing stamps. A further difference for both Octane and Sandstorm is that they had rubsigns while the other(European/Australasia) gold boxed versions of these figures do not (Yet they both retain the rubsign indents).

Sealed Fireflight and Breakdown figures have also been sighted with both chinese identifying stickers on, but the cards they were sealed on were english/french, usually indicating a Canadian release - but the classics didn't officially make it to Canada. The cards do have local canadian post codes in the copyright so perhaps Canada was going to get gold classics in 1990 but it didn't eventuate. If that was true it makes sense that any that did appear would be from the initial 1990 release before the line cut.

Gold Box 'original' Optimus Primes have been released with T2 trailers with the made in china manufacturing stamps (Same as the G2 black trailers), multiple examples have appeared in Australia - so Hasbro was likely filling the demand for the gold boxed primes before they moved full on into G2. These later Made in china grey trailers are much rarer than the blocked stamp versions.

Taiwanese G1

If the box or card has a big yellow sticker on the card or box, that's an official Taiwan release. Some Taiwan releases are 1980's US releases, while some are 1990's Chinese releases. You'll have to look for the other differences in order to tell for sure. Example - Nightbeat has the big Taiwanese sticker over the logo, it's clearly not the 1990's Chinese reissue (that came in a Dutch box) it has the normal copyright string on the back, and it does not have the thick silver-bordered metallic flame stickers. While the Sunstreaker pictured is the 1990's release, as it has the shortened copyright.

A Korean Motormaster -

First, take a look at the manufacturing date on the import sticker of this toy, and then take a look at the area below the tech spec on the back of the box.

The import sticker says it was made in 1989, which is the same year that the Chinese G1 Transformers were initially released.

The manufacturing location below the tech spec has a black bar over it just like many Pre-Headmasters Chinese G1 Transformers. The only explanation is that this IS a 1990’s Chinese G1 Transformer, except without the Chinese stickers and with a Korean sticker instead. It is the same toy but intended to be sold in Korea instead of China.

Look at the two logos on the import sticker. The blue logo belongs to Hasbro. The elephant logo belongs to Young Toys, a prominent Korean toy company. The text of the import sticker confirms that this is a Transformer made by Hasbro and imported into Korea by Young Toys.



The fact that Young Toys imported this toy is extremely significant. In Korea around 1990, Young Toys was one of the very few Korean toy companies that actually entered into licensing agreements with foreign toy companies. For example, they licensed from Bandai the rights to produce toys from series like Jetman, Liveman, Fiveman, and Machine Robo. Pretty much all other Korean toy companies at the time produced knockoffs. (It was not until many years later, in the mid-1990’s, that companies like Sonokong and Academy stopped making knockoffs and began entering into licensing agreements with U.S. and Japanese toy companies.) Therefore, since Young Toys made and imported only licensed goods around 1990, these 1990’s G1 Transformers must have been made by Hasbro.

1991 - 1992 Japanese mail-in exclusives

Like the US, Japan had mail-in exclusives you could get by sending in robot points with some money. In 1991 and 1992, their mail-in exclusives consisted of US-packaged reissues of older Transformers.

1991 Aerialbots: All five of them.

1992 Dinobots: All five of them.

The Aerialbots were simply the Chinese releases without the Chinese sticker in the corner. Thus, you can tell them apart from the original releases by using the methods mentioned above.

One way to tell Japanese mail-in Dinobots apart from the original 1980's releases is that they do not have rubsigns. (Note that Chinese packaged Dinobots did have rubsigns.) They also have the same abbreviated copyright information on their boxes as the Series 1 through 4 Chinese releases, interestingly dinobots with the shortened copyright with the gray background - see example have also been found in Japan.

There were also US-packaged Insecticons offered from 1987 to 1990, but it's presently unclear whether there are any differences between these and the original US releases. After all, several other US-packaged TFs were available as mail-in exclusives one or two years after their original release. The only thing strange about the Insecticons is that Takara continued to offer them as mail-ins for 4 years!  Advice from Chinese fans suggests that the Insecticons were never released in China. We also know Insections were shelf warmers in multiple markets so this could be simply dead stock that never got sent out to its originally intended destination.

Mysterious blocked no-Hasbro copyright releases

These just showed up on Ebay in 2008, although they appear to be much, much older. Since they were made in Japan, they're clearly not 1990's reissues like the toys mentioned above, but I didn't really feel like they deserved their own separate guide. As discussed below, they were probably made around 1986 or 1987.

So far we have only noticed two of them: Optimus Prime and Astrotrain. Optimus Prime has "(C) Hasbro" blacked out on the back of the box. Astrotrain has ALL of the copyright/manufacturing information removed. Here are pictures of the altered Copyright strings of the two toys:

Why are these mysterious? Well, no one really knows what they are. Obviously, the removal of "(C) Hasbro" is very sketchy, but Chinese TFs have similar alterations, and they turned out to be legit. Thus far there are only a couple clues about these toys:

Optimus Prime has black boxes around the the toy pictures on the front of the box. This is the same as the Mexican and Chinese releases, both of which came out around 1989.

The cases say "Made in Japan" and the seller claims they were originally purchased in Japan.

The cases that they came in are marked "PEL" instead of "Hasbro". (Some normal Springers, Octanes, and Astrotrains also came in the cases, strangely.)

Since these were, apparently, made in Japan, they had to have been made between 1984 and 1987, since starting in 1988 almost no Transformers were being made in Japan anymore. The black boxes on the Optimus Prime suggest a later release, so these were probably made in 1986 or 1987. Given that they were made and purchased in Japan, maybe PEL is a subcontractor that Hasbro and Takara used to manufacture Transformers. Maybe as their contract was expiring, they manufactured and sold a few TFs under the table, but altered the Copyright markings in an attempt to avoid getting into trouble.



Another theory I recently thought of is that these could be transitional variants not intended for release. That is, when Hasbro transitioned from "(C) Hasbro" to "(C) Hasbro Bradley", they had to alter the backs of their boxes by erasing the old copyright info and printing the new copyright info on top of it. On Optimus Prime in particular, this involved adding a black bar over the old copyright info, just like the mysterious version. Of course, the difference between the mysterious version and the Hasbro Bradley version is that it says "(C) Hasbro Bradley" on the Hasbro Bradley version. So maybe during the change, they printed out a couple test boxes to see what the erased copyright looked like before adding the new copyright. If that's the case, these aren't later reissues at all, but just weird not-intended-for-sale versions.



Anyway, whatever they really are, at least they're easy to tell apart from the originals. Just look for "(C) Hasbro" missing from the back of the box.

Credits:Original Author - Might Gaine

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Special Thanks to Fighbird/Martin from Autocon for providing the comparison images of Seaspray and Nightbeat.

Thanks to The Spacebridge for having the patience to answer my questions!

Thanks to Karl Hartman for letting me use his extensive list.

Thanks to Megatoron from the Allspark for adding many toys to the list.

Thanks to George Bee for discovering the Chinese Sunstreaker.

Thanks to twitter users @BoopsmyBoops for the Taiwanese Sunstreaker and @au_tf_collector for the inferno blocked copyright.

Thanks to patobot for discovering the Chinese Tracks.

Thanks for doublespy for the providing the Optimus Prime photos.

Thanks to Chris (Janda the red) for the Ramjet Photos.

Thanks to hoardworld for use of the ZigZag advertisement.