Guide - A Guide To Removing Stickers Off Sealed Games

Here is a guide to help you remove the stickers that make your sealed games look... less than perfect.



Firstly start off by picking at the sticker with your fingernail, if you use a knife or a similar thing you will not have full control over the object and may accidentally damage the seal. Seals damage easily and you can easily pick little nicks into the seal before you even notice it. Whilst picking at the sticker keep the tension on there seal where the sticker is being pulled, you can do this by placing two fingers on opposite sides of the sticker.



Once you have the tension (by keeping the sticker flat to the game) you can now pick at the sticker. The two fingers keep the seal tight to the game and not letting the seal come up with the sticker. The seal can only come up if you let it, it will weaken the glue in the actual Y Fold sealed part of the game and if your unlucky undo your game for you, it doesn't always do this sometimes it will stretch the seal and leave an area where the seal has been raised for everyone to see where there was a sticker., Check it out on the photo below, i'm sure you've all seen similar marks on games.



Once you get a little flap of sticker coming off the seal you can now try removing the sticker by pulling it, again be sure to keep two fingers either side keeping the tension on the area of the sticker. Do this slowly, there is no need to rush the sticker, let it come off in it's own time gradually. Some stickers will peel straight off and that will be the end of it but some, like the game i'm using here will get so far then rip.



If this happens not to worry, you just have to get picking at the sticker again, preferably on a new corner or where the sticker is at it's thickest. Keep doing this untill all the thick of the sticker has gone.



Once at this stage you will need to get the remainder of the white lable off, you may find picking at it difficult as there is very little thickness of the sticker left on the seal. If you can pick at the sticker... do so but be very careful not to damage the seal as it is easy to do so.
The best thing to do is dampen the remaining part of the sticker a little, it doesn't rearlly matter how you do this as long as you make sure you dont drown your game for obvious reasons. A damp rag/tissue is fine or if your like me and are and idol... so & so, you could wet your finger with your tongue and as saliva works just as well.



After dampening your remaining sticker very lightly brush your finger nail over the sticker from side to side and watch the stickerform little rolls of gunk.



On this game both the remaining white part of the sticker & the residue on the back of the sticker came off, this is great but doesn't happen everytime. Wipe away what is left on the game.



If you're lucky you will have a game that looks like this however most time, especially when dealing with older games, the stickers can be a bit more stubburn and will need some gental persuasion to get rid of the sticker residue that is ruining the look of your game.



This game has a great example of this, (I am aware that this is not a sealed game but the same principles still apply i just have to be less careful).
O.K. so now you have a game that has a sticky mess on it... there are many product to use which i will explore more deeply at a later date. The product i use has worked for me has worked wonders for me over the past year or so, it has helped rid many of my games of foul stickers on sealed games, also saved me a bit too in a sence (people pay less when a rare sealed game has a fat sticker on the front). Ok... enough hype the product i use is WD-40, it's available everywhere at a relitively low cost.
Start by squirting a small amount onto the area of your residue.



Make sure you don't spay on the sealed ends or on the tear strip as this product will weaken the glue holding the original seal together and possibally open the game for you. Also if it gets onto your game inside the seal your game will smell like a machanics garage for quite some time. You only have to leave the WD-40 on the residue for seconds (personally i leave for 5 but you can experiment with this). The WD-40 breaks the glue down weakening it and makes it soft. With a duster on anything else reasonably clean wipe off the WD-40 and residue along with it. Again some stickers are tougher than others, on tougher ones you will have to put some pressure on as you wipe away the reside and WD-40. Again make sure you A - do not wipe over the sealed ends of the game with your WD-40 cloth and B - Keep the tension on the area your wiping. If it is a rearlly stubburn sticker repeat the process as many times as needed and you should end up with something looking like this.



As you can see all the sticky mess of residue has completely gone. Unfortunatly, like with on this game, WD-40 doesn't get rid of scratches on seals or game cases.

When Not To Use THis Method Of Removing Stickers.
There are times or cirtain stickers that it is best to just leave alone, especially if you've never tried removing stickers before. Some are extreamly difficult to remove some are impossible to remove without damaging your seal on the game.

1- When the sticker is actually on the edge of the game you must be very careful as the sticker you are pulling at will try and undo your game for you. It is possible to remove these stickers but it takes a great deal of care and is not rearlly for the inexpeienced. Also Never use the WD-40 part of the guide here unless you want to see your game open by it'self, if there is a sticky mess i'd just leave it or if you rearlly don't want to leave it at that use WD-40 on your rag/duster, only a small bit put your finger inside the rag and lightly rub the residue with your finger in the rag, make sure you go fron the fat part of the Y-folded seal to the thin as it is less likely to get any WD-40 under the Y folded seal. Once finished wipe in the same way with a clean rag.
It's possible to do this methos when the sticker is over the tear strip but extra special care is needed around the strip. Also if you do spray WD-40 around the strip it may find it's way onto the inside of the seal, this isn't too much of a problem if you don't mind your game smelling of WD-40 for a long time. However, if the game is a boxed game e.g. SNES, N64 DO NOT spray WD-40 anywhere near the tearstrip, it can and more than likely will discolour you mint condition game.

2- Security Stickers, These stickers are rearlly not worth trying to remove them.
They come in various forms, some obvious some a little less so.





Both of these are obvious security stickers. If you have any of these stuck to your game. LEAVE IT. You will damage the seal if you try and remove it, the glue is soo strong it just rips the seal along with it as you try and prise it off leaving big holes in factory sealed games. I'm guessing it's so that people couldn't just peel them off in stores and walk out with a new sealed game.



This is a less obvious security sticker but a security sticker nevertheless. I believe they put these on games just to test my patience. I've tried to get these off games before with little joy. I can get the sticker part off but then you're left with a metalic box in the middle that is imbedded into the game with a series of square thin metallic lines stuck to the seal, all going around the metallic box. Here's a photo of one to see for yourself what i mean.



I've had a go at removing these a few times, only successfully once, the other times were not so successful... here's a game where i managed to get all the sticker off and all the metal lines, unfortunatly i was left with a large sticky mess.



This is one large sticky mes WD-40 hasn't got a prayor on. I'm sure you will aggree a large sticky mess on your game is less attractive than a bar coded sticker. You may find it hard to believe but the sticky mess is a godsend as to what can happen when you try and remove these stickers. See this next game



On this game i tried my hardest to remove a bar coded security sticker, as you can see, things didn't quite go to plan. The middle part i had to leave as it was imbedded into my games seal and the only way i could see of removing it was to slice the section of seal out of the game. Also where i was rearlly trying to pick at the square metalic strips surrounding the box i left marks in the seal, this couldn't be helped as they were stuck down very well. It also left a sticky mess that looks very unattractive on a game ike with the copy of FFX-2... a game i have now had to replace. Unfortunatly some games like my copy of Resident Evil 3 (the one you see here) are more difficult to replace and i wished i had never tried removing the sticker. So be warned, if you start peeling back a sticker and see this



leave it well alone, it's not worth the risk.

There are numerous things to get rid of sticker residue WD-40 has worked well for me. I will delve into using different products for you over the next month or so and see what rearlly does work the best and what you should leave well alone. Expect to see it appear in the thread sometime in the near future.

amazing guide and very very good work!

I totally agree with you regarding those security stickers. The square ones with the metal coils (WHSmith seem to favour these) I find are the worst, and I learnt my lesson the hard way! These are worth just never attempting to remove, no matter how confident you think you are of removing them! They do the job they were designed for, that's for sure!!!

The small white losenge style don't really bother me much on games, unless they're in a stupid place, like on the folded "Y" ends. It bothers me more on sealed Dvd's when they put these in an awkward position. The black style security stickers (Mostly used by HMV and Virgin) are annoying as the stores tend to strap them across the opening spine of a game / Dvd / Cd etc. In some cases, they're easy to pull off with little resistance, but you have to be careful if it's strapped across a tear strip as pulling could result in pulling the tear strip. This style security sticker only holds in place one of the white losenge's.

I have found that the latter style stickers are easier to remove if you use a knife and slit down the side of where it says "Security Protected" ~ In some cases, these stickers have perforations which enable the stickers to be bent easily. So, it's just a matter of slitting down the perforation and gently pulling each side apart from the case


Stickers on the front of a game don't really bother me though. If they're there, I leave them. It's the raised marks they leave behind due to the adhesive that bothers me more. And as you described above, sometimes stickers don't remove properly and leave a sticky mess which require dampening to remove. Best left on in my opinion.


One other type of sticker not mentioned above are the silver foil stickers which many Dreamcast games from Spain / Italy / Greece seem to have on them. These are specially designed to tear when you attempt to remove them, and peel off in various small parts due to slits all around the outsides. Whilst not difficult to remove, they are annoyingly fiddly, and you have to take great care and attention

Pascal wrote:amazing guide and very very good work!

Thanks

One other type of sticker not mentioned above are the silver foil stickers which many Dreamcast games from Spain / Italy / Greece seem to have on them. These are specially designed to tear when you attempt to remove them, and peel off in various small parts due to slits all around the outsides. Whilst not difficult to remove, they are annoyingly fiddly, and you have to take great care and attention

I must admit i've never come accross this type of sticker before, though i've never collected/bought any dreamcast games. They sound similar to the normal price tag sticker just with more slits.
The sticker i know of that i've missed out is the ones where you peel it off and it says void but i believe they were only placed on rentals and never seled games so i didn't bother

hi , just thought i would mention that i use baby wipes to take off the stickers , safer than wd40 i would say .
its worked on every sticker i've tried so far . just dab the sticker till its damp then most of it should peal off then rub the sticky stuff till it comes off .
try it !!

yeah I also use baby wipes sometimes ... works fine !

Hi, i will try that. I'm gonna try a lot of different products and rate them.
Thanks for the tip

That was a great guide. This is how a guide is supposed to be. Ambitious,detailed and complete.

Thanks, Not bad then for my first

Perfect guide
It's funny...concerning the normal stickers (like on the first pics) I used the same method like years....it takes time, but it works.
Thanks for the guide

However, Stickers on unsealed Games from Flea Markets etc. are a whole different league...people who do that should get shot, seriously.

Good Guid anyway

the pictures are all red X

another neat trick that works with both types of the sensormatic stickers [square sticker with metal coils] and [plastic chiklets] is to put the game in the freezer for about 5-10 minutes. this tends to release the bond that the glue has on the plastic and allows you to "pop" the sticker off leaving very little, if any, residue remaining on the plastic wrap of the packaging.

it's always a good idea to leave the titles sit out for a good hour or so afterwards so that any condensation evaporates from the packaging before storing the games again.

Alcohol (as in ethanol) is also dynamite for removing the glue. It's very temporary as it evaporates quickly so you must act quickly, but it shouldn't leave any residue and if you're careful, no pop up marks either

Hi all pics sorted out for every1

thanks j.m.ratkos i will certainly try this method to remove secutity stickers, though i may wait till i get one on a well... crappy game ... i wouldn't want to damage a good so i'll get some practice in on some common games with security stickers, my pokemon yellow can wait for a bit

i have a big problem with that big ass sticker cause it leaves that residue

anyways, i use Goo Gone to remove my stickers. you just damp or pour directly to the sticker and let it sit for about 2 minutes. then peel away. it comes off like it was temporarily just been sitting there the whole time

whats the equivalent of WD-40 in europe (austria/germany)?
thanks

Nice guide DJ Villa! I must admit, you got balls to try this!

Personally the sticker shwon on FFX2 wouldn't have bothered me. After all, i'm interested in preserving the game underneath, and worrying about a sticker on the outside of the cellophane is just a little too obsessive! I will admit, worrying about a rip or tear is one thing, but a sticker is quite another. Unless the game is intended for display purposes, it's best left where it is. Often, even after stickers are removed, there's usually some kind of adhesive "ripple" where the sticker once was

On the other hand, I would worry about sticker residue on an unsealed game, as shown with Theme Park above. This is one reason why I refuse to purcahse unsealed games, therefore it's irrelevant to games in my ccollection. I do understand other peoples distaste for them though, and especially where old cardboard Nintendo games are concerned