Famicomblog is...almost back! One more week and I should be back to normal! In the meantime I thought I`d take an hour here to do an homage post to the Hard Off price tag blues which, as the title suggests, I got.It seems every hobby has its common annoyance that enthusiasts enjoy complaining about. For Famicom collectors resident in Japan far and away the biggest of these has to be the Hard Off price tags. You can find some really great deals in those shops, but when you get your stuff home you always have to deal with the Hard Off price tag blues. They use the most ridiculously adhesive price tags in the world. They are a massive pain in the ass to get off. And they always put them directly on the cart!! Heaven forbid that you should find some good CIB stuff at one of those shops because it will have one of these price tags directly on the box and it WILL remove part of the surface of the box when you take it off.
Let me show you what I`m talking about. Take this copy of Sonic the Hedgehog 3 for the Mega Drive I got at one a while back at a Hard Off here in town:
105 yen is a good deal, but that price tag? Here is how it goes. Step 1: Start at one of the corners:
That gets about 10% of it off:
Step 2: Have a go at the opposite corner:
Now you`ve got kind of a V shape going there:
And Repeat:
And Repeat:Until you have a cart that is mostly clean:
And a pile of sticky little price tag remnants to dispose of:
2 hours well spent.
I tend to just leave stickers on my games and pretend they're not there. I know I should try and take them off but the heartache involved in potentially ruining the actual cartridges stickers is too much to bear.
ReplyDeleteYou could have chosen other cartridge, seeing Sonic 3 damaged by some Hard-off employee hurts my eyes and makes me hate Hard-off store! :)
ReplyDeleteCan definitely relate to this. We have game stores here in Australia that love placing stickers all over boxed SNES games and they're damn near impossible to remove without causing damage to the box. :(
ReplyDeleteHow can game retailers, especially ones who deal with retro gear, be so shortsighted?
I've noticed buying new games from places like Wal-Mart or Gamestop, the labels tend to be stickier and as such harder to remove. Thankfully, since the tags are usually on the case rather than the game, it's not as troublesome.
ReplyDeleteBuying used games from places like Salvation Army or Goodwill, though, is a much easier experience in terms of labels. Like Hard-Off, I've encountered poor cartridges with labels on the... well... labels.
The stickers in question, however, tend to be less sticky and less flimsy, allowing easy removal with no residue and no damage to the cart's label! Still, I feel for ya.
Hi Sean.
ReplyDeleteHere are some sticker removal tips that work for me. I hate stickers, and go to great lengths to get them off.
1) Use a hairdryer to heat the glue underneath the sticker. Just blow hot air at the sticker for a couple of secs. Hot soft glue peels a lot easier.
2) Start from one corner and pull straight up, steady but slowly. Don't pull too fast, or it will tear. Time is your friend. If you are patient enough, it will come off in one piece, which is always very rewarding. If it takes a long time, so the glue has had time to cool again, repeat tip #1.
3) Never use any solvents to remove glue. Especially where the label is damaged from the peeling, it will become a mess.
Hope that helps.
Erik
If you want to take these stickers off, there's an easier way that yields better results - use a hair dryer and a razor blade. Basically put the hair dryer on low heat and hold it a decent distance away, so that you don't heat everything up too hot and too fast. Once the sticker's warm, you should be able to get a corner of the razor blade underneath. Once you pull up enough of the sticker grab it with your fingers or tweezers and pull, while continuing to blow hot air. This is how I take security stickers off of the inside of electronics without breaking them- it works well on price tag stickers too.
ReplyDeleteSega Mikey Drive - Yes, I do that sometimes too. Actually I had done that with this Sonic game and just decided to drag it out of its box to take off the old price tag for the purposes of making this post!
ReplyDeletejpx72 - Oh I have seen far worse than a mere copy of Sonic 3. The CIB Famicom and SFC stuff is the worst, the damage those damn price tags do!!
ReplyDeleteFrank - yup, shortsighted is the right word. At Hard Off the employees have no idea about retro game stuff for the most part so they treat it all as junk (in fact it is even called junk) when they put it out for sale.
ReplyDeleteSkyrunner - yes, it is the same here. Some other shops use really great price tags that come off with no problem at all. Mandarake price tags are like that, they come off super easy and don`t do any damage. The fact that these good price tags exist makes Hard Off`s use of bad ones more frustrating. It also doesn`t make much sense, Hard Off is a spin off of Book Off, which specializes in books which, being made of paper, would be way more suitable to easy-to-peel tags.
ReplyDeleteEric and Sec713 - many thanks for that! My wife`s hair dryer will be put to good use next time I visit Hard Off!
ReplyDeleteHairdryer and/or Goo Gone and stickers will never bother you again. But seriously, screw places that put the sticker in the label. The entire back of the cart is beautiful blank black plastic!
ReplyDeleteTotally agree Nathan! It is almost as if they are mocking us, the retro game buying public, by deliberately placing these tags in the locations where they are likely to do the most damage when removed.
ReplyDeleteActually, when I was working at a book store, I figured out how to pry off some of the stickiest of labels with no chemicals, just a small piece of equipment: a small razor, like you'd easily find in a small box cutter.
ReplyDeleteAll you have to do - and this works about 90-95% of the time - is lay the razor near-flat against the cart itself, press slightly under the corner of the sticker, and slowly press. It will usually slide under the label and, while some are sticky and terrible enough that you'll make progress and then cut through the label itself, it can be used again and again. Comes off in big chunks (if not the whole thing), seems to get most of the glue. Just make sure not to cut yourself in the process. If you can, use the blade from an older razor, one that's a bit more blunt so the stickers roll up easier.
Problem solved! :-)
Thanks Kevin, I will try that too! I love the fact that so many techniques have been developed to deal with this one problem!!
ReplyDeleteI have to third the suggestion to use a hairdryer. Value Villages here in the states use truly awful stickers that are roughly an inch and a half by two inches, and easily some of the stickiest that I've ever had to deal with. Hairdryers do an immaculate job at removing them, and without damaging the label on the product itself. I found the latter part of that to be a bit of a surprise.
ReplyDeleteThe razor method sounds pretty terrifying to me, mostly as I could see that going really bad if you're not steady as a rock.
Goo Gone, as someone else stated, is good for the residue; although I'm partial to using a weak alcohol-based cleaner to dissolve the Goo Gone's oil-based solvent. I always worry about the oil in Goo Gone causing a nasty stain that will damage the cart label even more than improperly removing a sticker, but I've never had any issues if I dissolved/weakened the Goo Gone with a small amount of Windex.
Thanks, mercatfat, I`ve been trying the hair dryer solution and it seems to be working well.
ReplyDelete