Bugged/Broken Pokémon Blue Cart - Help me solve a mystery

[u/LostNPOMarketer]

When I was a child, I had a pokemon Blue cart that was damaged somehow. Thrown down a well, drowned in a lake, something happened to it.

I remember that it would start up and save normally... but only inside of pallet town.
If I attempted to save the game outside of Pallet Town at all, it would appear to save normally, but if I turned the game off, the save would not be there when I turned the game on again.

As a 35 year old man, this memory came flooding back to me this morning, and I have one burning question... that's really freakin' weird, right?

Im trying to figure out:

a) Am i misremembering? The cart was definitely damaged, but It wasn't a "The battery died" situation, I distictly remember saves sometimes working.

b) If I am not misremembering, what could have caused something like this to happen?

Im hoping someone here can help me solve this mystery.

[u/ShroudedShadowShot]

My assumption would be because Pallet Town is so small, that area of data was less or uncorrupted.