You can look at the ConversationIndex property. If the length is 44 chars,
it is an original message. Otherwise remove 10 trailings chars and look for
a message with that value of ConversationIndex.
Not very efficient, but this is the best you can do IMHO.

Dmitry Streblechenko (MVP)
http://www.dimastr.com/
OutlookSpy - Outlook, CDO
and MAPI Developer Tool

"james" wrote in message
ups.com...
Yes, that works, I do get the item with this event, but I want to catch
the original item and manipulate it before it gets to the Inspector.

The tasks is:
Clean the subject line before it is presented in the Inspector window
(ie remove instances of specific strings)

james