The Collector's Handbook, Part 2: Storing and Preserving Your Game Boys

The enemy is time, light and damp

A Game Boy collection is a small archive, and like any archive it rewards a little quiet care. The good news is that these machines were built to be dropped, carried and loved, so they are tougher than most vintage electronics. The threats they face in storage are slow and undramatic: leaking batteries, creeping humidity, strong light and the gentle chemistry of ageing plastic. None of these needs an expensive solution. What they need is attention, stable conditions and a few sensible habits. This guide walks through the ones that are widely accepted among collectors and conservators, and it is honest about the places where a popular technique carries real risk.

Batteries: the silent killers

If you do only one thing after reading this, remove the batteries from anything you are not actively using. Alkaline AA and AAA cells are the single most common cause of avoidable damage in a collection. As they age they can leak potassium hydroxide, a corrosive paste that eats through battery contacts, springs and circuit traces. Once it starts it spreads, and a leak inside an original Game Boy, a battery pack or an accessory can quietly ruin the part before you ever notice. Take the cells out of every console, camera, printer and controller that stores them, and check anything you keep loaded every few months. If a battery already shows white or green crust, handle it carefully, keep it away from skin and eyes, and clean the contacts gently rather than storing the leak next to healthy items.

The original Maxell Super Power Ace Batteries - A little timebomb in the Game Boy

Cartridges hide a second, sneakier battery. Many save-enabled Game Boy games, the Pokemon titles most famously, keep their saved data alive with a small coin cell, usually a CR2025 or CR2032, wired to a memory chip inside the cartridge. These cells were never meant to last forever, and most are now well past their designed life of roughly fifteen to twenty-five years. When one dies the cartridge still plays perfectly, but it can no longer hold a save, and older saves may already be lost. This is normal ageing, not a fault. If a saved game matters to you, the cell can be replaced, ideally by someone comfortable with a soldering iron, and your existing save can often be backed up first with a cartridge dumping tool. It is delicate work, so if you are unsure, ask an experienced repairer rather than risk the board.

Light, heat and humidity

Game Boys like the same conditions you do: cool, dry and stable. Aim for moderate room temperature and a relative humidity somewhere in the region of thirty to fifty percent, and value steadiness above any exact number. Wild swings are worse than a slightly imperfect average, because repeated expansion and contraction stresses plastic, labels and solder joints. Avoid damp basements, hot attics and exterior walls that sweat in winter. A small silica gel packet tucked into a box or case helps buffer moisture and is chemically inert, so it will not harm plastic or electronics, though it works best when you dry it out or replace it now and then. Keep everything out of direct sunlight. Ultraviolet light fades cartridge labels and box art and speeds up the yellowing of grey plastic, so a shaded shelf, a closed cabinet or a UV-filtering film on a bright window all pay off over the years.

Dust and display cases

Dust is more than a cosmetic nuisance. It holds moisture against surfaces, works into buttons and connectors, and turns into grime once it mixes with the natural oils from handling. A closed display case or cabinet keeps the worst of it off while still letting you enjoy the collection, and a glass or acrylic front adds a layer of UV protection when it is the filtering kind. If you display consoles switched off and unplugged, you sidestep both battery worries and the small, needless risk of leaving old electronics powered for no reason.

Paper and boxes

Boxes, manuals and inserts are usually the first things to suffer and the hardest to replace. Paper and cardboard are acidic by nature and slowly break down, yellowing and growing brittle. To slow this, keep them away from light and damp, and store them in acid-free, lignin-free sleeves, folders or boxes of the kind sold for archival photo and document storage. Plain acid-free material is a safe and inexpensive upgrade over ordinary plastic bags, some of which can trap moisture or react with print over time. Handle paper with clean, dry hands, and never repair a tear with ordinary sticky tape, which yellows and leaves a permanent stain.

Upright and supported

How you physically place items matters more than it seems. Store boxes and cartridges upright, like books on a shelf, rather than stacked in tall piles. Stacking puts steady weight on the lowest boxes, crushing corners and edges over months and years, while upright storage lets each item support its neighbours. Pack a shelf firmly enough that nothing leans or sags, but not so tightly that you tear a box getting it out. For loose cartridges, individual sleeves or a divided tray keep contacts from rubbing together and stop labels from scuffing.

Foam and old cases: the off-gassing trap

That soft foam padding inside an old camera bag or flight case can be a hidden enemy. Older foams and certain soft plastics, particularly those containing PVC, break down over time and release acids and plasticisers, a slow process often called off-gassing that can corrode metal contacts and leave a sticky residue on anything resting against them. If a case smells sharp or vinegary, or the foam is crumbling and greasy, take your items out and store them elsewhere. Inert modern materials such as polyethylene foam, acid-free board and archival-grade sleeves are the safer bet for long-term contact.

To whiten or not to whiten

Sooner or later you will meet the temptation of a badly yellowed shell and read about Retrobright, a treatment that uses hydrogen peroxide and ultraviolet light to bleach the discolouration away. It is worth being honest here: it can give a striking short-term result, but it carries real risks, and this guide mentions it as a caution rather than a recommendation. The whitening is a surface bleach, not a repair, so the yellowing commonly returns within months to a couple of years. More troubling, long-term tests by hobbyists have found that treated plastic can end up more yellowed and more brittle than plastic that was simply left alone, and the change cannot be undone. If a shell is precious to you, the safest course is to prevent yellowing in the first place with shade and stable conditions, and to accept a little honest patina as part of the object's history.

Display versus deep storage

Finally, decide what is on show and what is resting. A display collection lives with a small, accepted trade-off: more light, more dust and more handling in exchange for the pleasure of seeing it every day. Manage that with filtered light, a closed case and gentle, clean handling. Items in deep storage can be protected more fully, boxed with a little silica gel, kept dark and cool, batteries removed, and simply checked once or twice a year. Both approaches are valid. The point is to choose on purpose, so that nothing important is quietly deteriorating in a spot you never look at.

However large your shelf, the habits are the same: evict the batteries, keep things cool, dry and shaded, support them upright and handle the paper kindly. Do that and your Game Boys will keep working and keep their charm for decades to come. If you would like to see how we care for and document our own collection, you are always welcome to visit the Game Boy Museum.

The Full Series

Part 1: What a Grade Really Means · Part 2: Storing and Preserving Your Game Boys (you are here) · Part 3: Cleaning a Game Boy Without Ruining It