I've implemented Jeff's approach now. The attached archive includes a patch which removes the serialization related code from the class definitions and several files adding serialization support. The patch also adds an #include <boost/ptr_container/serialize.hpp> to PtrContainer's serialization test. boost/ptr_container/serialize_ptr_array.hpp: serialization support for ptr_array boost/ptr_container/serialize_ptr_deque.hpp: serialization support for ptr_deque boost/ptr_container/serialize_ptr_list.hpp: serialization support for ptr_list boost/ptr_container/serialize_ptr_map.hpp: serialization support for ptr_map and ptr_multimap boost/ptr_container/serialize_ptr_set.hpp: serialization support for ptr_set and ptr_multiset boost/ptr_container/serialize_ptr_vector.hpp: serialization support for ptr_vector boost/ptr_container/serialize.hpp: includes all the above listed headers Sebastian