Why do SNES Pal carts get yellowed in the back?

[Retro_player]

Hello...

I've been searching for some snes games, but I've found that the most snes games I foiund on used games shops or I try to buy from people, have the back side of the cart yellowed. I get upset with this, because I kind of like everything mint in my collection.
Does anyone know why this happens?
His there a way to solve this? Like clean the cart with some kind of product, like paint thinner or something?

Thank You

Regards!

[hydr0x]

ehm none of my lots of snes carts (pal) have this, but i think it is the same problem as with the consoles, nintendo used a material which yellows fast in the beginning, they changed this though

[hydr0x]

it might be that more carts are yellow in portugal due to the time the carts are exposed to the sun in your country ;)

[dreamcaster]

This is the same problem that early SNES's experience, and it is attributed to poor quality plastic used by Nintendo in the early 90's.

Early consoles and game paks have this problem, and there is no way to get rid of it.

A couple of my early cartridges have this problem (Super Mario Kart and Pilotwings), but the problem must have been fixed after a while as I don't see this problem on a regular basis.

[christianscott27]

i've heard some people attribute the yellowing to indoor smoking, like the walls of a bar, not so sure but it might play a part. i've seen this on some of my superfami carts as well, the mario game i found has has something of a "tan line" the yellowing stops where the cart would have been sunken into the console, leading me to think it must have been inside the console for a very long time.

[rbudrick]

Psssssst...


http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2333&highlight=puke

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8096&highlight=plastic

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=16803


--Rob

[Ed Oscuro]

I've got a couple Super Famicom carts like this -- Super R-Type and Final Fantasy IV Easytype have yellowed back halves to the cart, er, "cassette" shell.

[Retro_player]

It is very strange because only the back side of the cart is yellowed.
Have anyone tried to solve this with sucess?

Regards!

[Retro_player]

I've been reading the other topics about yellowed consoles, but my problem is not the console, it's the game carts.
I also agree that older games don't suffer from this problem, but there are great early games that yellow.
I've read about painting the consoles or aplying polish, but is this doable on a cart?
Because of the sticker with the game title?
Does anyone have an idea?

Regards!

[Dr. Morbis]

It could be that those are the result of another collector upscaling the quality of their carts. He could have swapped out his most yellowed backs before he got rid of them. I collect NES, and I do a similar thing with NES carts. For example, if I find a mint smb/dh cart for a buck or less I'll buy it just so I can swap it's back with a cart in my collection that has rental stickers or markings on the back. Of course, I only swap backs that have the same back labels. But if there is a sharp contrast between the color of the plastic on the front half of your cart and the color of the plastic on the back half, this could be the reason.

[Ed Oscuro]

When all's said and done, I'm just happy it's the back shells, not the front shells, that've gone bad. o_O

I'm not sure if the shells were pre-formed by the plastic supplier, but if my games are the trend for these yellowed cases it seems that Nintendo was doing damage control and using the bad plastic for the back instead. Does anybody have a cartridge yellowed on the front?