Color changing old cartridges and other age related stuff

[Tanooki]

I happened to scan my games today trying to see if I wanted to throw another onto the ebay fire shortly and saw a couple disturbing things with the games. Mind you almost every single one I am the original owner on so they are not abused or stored poorly other than they can get dusty on a shelf.

SMB3 for instance has some color shift of light gray,almost white in a spot and then greenish hue going on. And then I have no idea what but it almost looked like pollen yellowish/beige crust in the top snap groove on Kid Icarus. A few games have either or. ActRaiser while not shifting has a lot of that all over the face sides where the linear groove are. Nauseatingly Dracula X and Chrono Trigger among a few others are starting to shift to another shade.

I take it nothing can be done to stop this and as time goes along more and more of peoples stuff being 25-30+ years and aging it will probably become a common occurrance. Can anything be done to halt or reverse it or will casuals, sentimental types, and even collectards just have to deal with the misery of stuff changing color on them? Seems if you care about value it may start to decrease the game with that or maybe not if most go south and select few that dont may geta premium. It also should alarm anyone into sealed as much if not more than a battery exploding I would think.

Anyone got a take on any of this?

[Sarge]

Wouldn't surprise me if the polymers are breaking down a bit, just like the shells on SNES systems. You can see this in a lot of other plastic stuff, too, like some of my Transformers. It's more visible with the SNES because it's a lighter color, but I suspect similar plastics are used with the cart shells, too.

[Fragems]

Probably a combo of dust, light, moisture, and age. To avoid dust and light damage some people install curtains over their game shelves. Would probably also help with moisture a bit although some people go the extra step and have dehumidifiers or you could get something simple like this Purifying Bag.

There is also the air purifier option to fight against dust but stay away from ionizers since they allegedly can damage electronics if kept in close proximity or if left on for extended times.

[Ack]

I highly recommend you read these threads:

http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... =2&t=11594

http://www.racketboy.com/forum/viewtopi ... ic#p193344

[Tanooki]

I know of retrobrite and how foul it is, someone found a more acceptable over the counter rememdy at sally beauty supply a couple years back. There is this huge squeeze bottle of creme which has a potent amount of the ingredients that retrobrite has without the mess. Just put on some gloves, clean your victim, apply creme with brush, and let it bake under UV. The video is on youtube.

But is this the same process going on with the greening of the and almost looks like stress marking to white on my SMB3 cart? And what about the weird odd colored crust in the cracks of Kid Icarus and Actraiser as it is just bizarre.

As slow and boring as it may be I feel I will be de-crusting the carts and dusting the 110~ of them after work today with a lot of alcohol and paper towel strips.