Safety of handling pirate games?

[recorderdude]

Today I got my hands on a gameboy multi with wario land, turtles 3, captain america and a few common multi games like dr. mario and alleyway - it was pretty cheap, as the shop thought it was just a copy of wario land.



Here's what it looks like.

 Pretty neat, but when driving home I started talking to a few friends I went to the shop with about the fact that I usually wash my hands after I play a pirate cartridge, just in case lead paint was used on the cartridge itself. I'm not sure how much truth is in that, but it's probably best to take that precaution with anything coming out of china unregulated.

The question I have: does anyone else do this when handling pirates? Have there been any cases of the cartridges using lead paint or anything else dangerous to obtain their colors?

[fcgamer]

Hi my friend,

Well let me ask you a question, as I think it will lead to the answer to the question you are asking about.  Do you wash your hand after handling mangoes?  Well of course you don't, and if you do, it is probably because you wash your hands after eating any fruit, right?  Well do you know that mango skin / mango trees contain a similar oil to that produced in poison ivy, thus handling mangoes can cause a rash?  Yet many people handle this damned fruit without a care in the world.

That is how I feel about bootleg carts.  We need to remember that these games were manufactured for kids.  Maybe some companies used lead to make their products, who knows, but if you look at folks from South America, Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe - they aren't dying or getting ill just because they handled a few bootleg videogames sometime in the past, without washing their hands.  Likewise, you probably won't either, so this is something I honestly wouldn't worry about at all.

[recorderdude]

That's...actually a really solid point. Well said, man.

[taizou]

I've never seen a cartridge that was painted anyway, they're always coloured plastic so there's not really much risk - the danger from lead paint is if bits flake off and you accidentally ingest them somehow.

Some consoles do have painted parts though, eg if it's a multicolour design but they only used one piece of plastic, or if they were going for something fancy like a metallic effect, so you might want to be careful if you come across one of those. (but like, I still don't think there's much cause to worry, unless you're picking off bits of the paint and nibbling on it) It's not too common though, I used to have a Famiclone and still have a handheld with painted sections, but I don't see it done very often.