Any way to get these stickers off?

[Snatch1414]

Bought some extremely common NES games and they were in a row so I didn't notice these. Very garish. FYI there are no indentations on the sticker, that's just from a crappy editing tool I used to smudge the name and address on there.

[Hobie-wan]

Break out the hair dryer and put it on low. Warm up the sticker and it might come off easier. Else contact cleaner soaked on the edge might work without having to worry about damage after it dries. Goo Gone will leave you with oily spots if there are any pinholes in the cart label or you get it on the edge.

[Satoshi_Matrix]

What I always use is 99% pure Isopropanol, which you can get at drugstores.

Stickers can be a real pain on NES carts, especially if they're been there for decades.

[Ziggy]

The problem is that the sticker is on the label, and whatever you do you wanna try and not damage the label.

What I would first do is try to peel it off with out the aid of anything. Pick at a corner and start to peel, and if it seems to wanna come off easy then keep going. The label is glossy and stickers can peel off it fairly easily. If it's not coming off easy then stop.

Using a blow dryer will heat up the sticker and the label, so I would first try something else. If you're able to, open up the cart and take the PCB out. Put the half of the cart shell with the sticker on it in the freezer for a while. Let it get real cold. Then, starting from a new corner, try and peel the sticker off again. And again, if you notice it not coming off cleanly, then stop.

If the freezer doesn't work, or you cannot open the cart, then I would try the blow dryer. The blow dryer will get it off for sure. You wanna heat it up enough so that it'll come right off but with out heating up the entire cart label. The reason why I'm not a big fan of the blow dryer is because depending on the sticker it can leave a sticky mess behind.

If there's a mess to clean up, then you have to use something wet to clean it off. Alcohol, contact cleaner, Goo Gone. They're work, but you wanna do it without damaging the label. Like Hobie said, if the label has a pin hole in it (likely caused from peeling the sticker off) the label will soak up any liquid you put on it.

Off course, this is a perfect cart to practice all this on being common and only worth $5. Worst case, just get a replacement label for it. At least you'll get the practice so if you one day have to do it on a more expensive and less common cart you'll know what you're doing.

[HailToApples]

I bought a copy of Super Mario Kart at a local Play N Trade once, and only after I got home did I realize they put the sticker in the most inconvenient place. I peeled it off, but this is what it now looks like:

Anyways, I don't know how to help you that much, but go gently. Mine would've left a bigger spot if I were more impatient.

[CRTGAMER]

Luckily the NES cart label has a glossy protective surface. Is that address sticker just paper or does it have a "plastic" style surface? I would not attempt to peel it off, you might "bubble up" the NES label.

I have pretty good luck with LiftOff 2, but any petroleum based non acidic cleaner including Goo Gone, Alcohol and even Olive Oil will work. Just let it soak in for a while and peel away the softened label with your fingernail. If the sticker has a protective shiny surface, it might have to be peeled off first to let the chemical soak into the glue underneath.

Sticker Removal Guide - http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... 36#p398336

In the picture, the soaked sticker with protective surface already removed "LiftOffs" quite easily.

[Ziggy]

Luckily the NES cart label has a glossy protective surface. Is that address sticker just paper or does it have a "plastic" style surface? I would not attempt to peel it off, you might "bubble up" the NES label.

I disagree. I had similar stickers come on the front and back labels of my Tengen Tetris cart. They were from a video rental place. I was able to pull them off with relative ease. It did not affect the label at all. And the little bit of sticker residue left over was cake.

[pierrot]

I would personally recommend the blow dryer. It always serves me well, and one of the best solutions to dry or sticky glue (although much more so with old dried glue) for me is to scrape at it with disposable Swiffer dry sweeping cloths. I use them to clean off all sorts of things, and while they take a bit more finesse/elbow grease, and don't disinfect like alcohol, they work magic on sticker residue, without much risk of damaging labels and such.

[Teh Lurv]

If you're going to use rubbing alcohol, don't heat up the label. I had a SNES cart with stubborn sticker residue on the label. I heated the label up with a hairdryer thinking it would soften the adhesive. It worked, but the heat and alcohol also took the ink right off the label.

[Hobie-wan]

If you're going to use rubbing alcohol, don't heat up the label. I had a SNES cart with stubborn sticker residue on the label. I heated the label up with a hairdryer thinking it would soften the adhesive. It worked, but the heat and alcohol also took the ink right off the label.

I'm guessing that was an N64 or late SNES cart. Those don't have the plastic layer on them like NES and mose SNES carts do.