Missing Trackable Rant

Posted: Sun Sep 09, 2012 9:05 am

We have 10 trackables out in the world.

Two are missing and one went missing with zero miles on it, ZERO. So it got nabbed from the very first container it was placed in. Some have not moved in a year and I fear they may be missing too.

One very nice coin is listed in the hands of a cacher for one year, who has not responded to my e-mails to move it along. Checking his stats, he has 51 finds. So he probably thinks that geocaching is a scavenger hunt and he has taken it for his own.

Another one was held for a year and then finally moved after repeated e-mails.

One guy sent back a nasty-gram saying "what do you think, that you own it?" Well, as a matter of fact, I do own it.

Why do people steal trackables?
Why do they hold them for months and years?
If they get placed into secluded, hard D/T caches, then they don't get stolen as much, but then they don't get moved either.

It's not the cost of the trackables we have, that is minor, it is that trackables need to move.

It just ticks me off and I had to vent.

Angry

Posted: Sun Sep 09, 2012 11:19 am

Amen!

Know how you feel. When I started geocaching in 2009, my wife gave me 3 nice geocoins as a birthday gift.
1) Went missing on its first move.
2) In the hands of the same individual since shortly after release.
3) Finally showed up on the radar after a year, "SO" there might be hope.

I honestly don't do much of anything with trackables anymore. Got soured so fast. I will move some on occasion but only when I know what its mission is in order to help it along. Some cache owners frown on taking a trackable and not leaving one so I am somewhat hesitant.

I write it off to the fact that there are many unknowledgeable cachers out there. Thinking its some sort of swag and not knowing it's a trackable. Grabbing it and losing it or forgetting about it or it's cool and I'm going to keep it.

Posted: Sun Sep 09, 2012 11:27 am

It's better to rant here than to someone you may be living with or related to! That's what these Forums are for. Sharing with people who know your pain.

I basically ignore the "trade even on Trackables" request by COs. Trackables are meant to MOVE, not to be swapped like swag. Groundspeak has even referenced that fact in their weekly buletin.
Of course, if I find a cache with alot of Trackables (5 or more), I don't take them all, unless it is a TB prison. Another cacher and I rescued 12 Trackables that had been stuck in a 4/5 DT cache for over a year. We received several 'thank yous' from Trackable owners on that break out!

We have several Trackables that are MIA. It's an unfortunate part of the game.

Posted: Sun Sep 09, 2012 12:01 pm

JimandLinda wrote:

I basically ignore the "trade even on Trackables" request by COs. Trackables are meant to MOVE, not to be swapped like swag. Groundspeak has even referenced that fact in their weekly bulletin.

Good point, thanks for the reminder.

Posted: Sun Sep 09, 2012 10:06 pm

JimandLinda wrote:

It's better to rant here than to someone you may be living with or related to! That's what these Forums are for. Sharing with people who know your pain.

I basically ignore the "trade even on Trackables" request by COs. Trackables are meant to MOVE, not to be swapped like swag. Groundspeak has even referenced that fact in their weekly buletin.
Of course, if I find a cache with alot of Trackables (5 or more), I don't take them all, unless it is a TB prison. Another cacher and I rescued 12 Trackables that had been stuck in a 4/5 DT cache for over a year. We received several 'thank yous' from Trackable owners on that break out!

We have several Trackables that are MIA. It's an unfortunate part of the game.

YES!

Posted: Sun Sep 09, 2012 10:32 pm

We've had very similar experiences. We will still send out travel bugs, but we keep our geocoins for discovery at events.

Posted: Mon Sep 10, 2012 8:01 am

Averith wrote:

We've had very similar experiences. We will still send out travel bugs, but we keep our geocoins for discovery at events.

Ditto on this. I have become soured with my trackables going MIA. Like many people that have been given some very nice coins, I will never release them into the world of muggles. Many of them have thousands of miles and adventures on them and I enjoy shring them with cachers at events.

I do have 4 coins that are on 'holiday' with a caching friend in Europe right now. They are having the time of their little lifes. Laughing

I also abide by the suggestion that TB's are not a 1-for-1 trade, but not to have the cache cleared out of them either.

Posted: Mon Sep 10, 2012 10:55 am

We have over 30 trackables launched. More than half are MIA. I just marked another 4 as unknown location. I won't send out any more.

I was even contacted by someone who found our tag, no meerkat attached. Really? Who would want the 1 inch high plastic meerkat? He was in MINGO, GC30, so maybe he made it to Ebay for being in the famous cache!

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 11:02 am

i have 3 out there and all are missing.

Posted: Tue Sep 11, 2012 4:59 pm

For several years our new 6th graders would release TB's every Fall. We'd write 'em up & take pictures & activate them in Computer Ed, track them in Geography classes, write letters to finders as Com Arts activities, etc. What a great cross-curriculum activity! And so many cachers were just terrific at going the extra mile to get our TB's, post great logs about them, and take neat pictures. Lotsa fun for all involved.

But that project has gone away, to a great extent due to the short lifespan of TB's. By the end of a school year, we'd be lucky to have 25% of them left.

Our personal experience is about the same. We have a few still circulating, but probably won't put any more out into the GeoWorld. Our geomobile TB has lotsa miles on it and has never been held even overnight, and our coins are attached to our hiking sticks so they move around with us. No more probs, but not as much fun.

cYa, Chris & Jim

WGA Member Joined: 2007-11-26 Posts: 3258

Ditto, not worth the expense or hassle on any level.

Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2012 2:10 pm

I enjoy finding coins in the wild, and since I enjoy finding them, it seems fitting and fair to release a few as well to share.

I have over 100 geocoins traveling about, and about 25 of them still move. Sometimes coins gone for years will reappear.

zuma

Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2012 2:52 pm

zuma wrote:

Sometimes coins gone for years will reappear.

I know you have been a member for a long time, so I'll ask. What has been the longest period of time so far that a coin has been missing before it showed up again?

Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2012 4:45 pm

we had a coin sit lost for over a year and a half and was found in a toy box and brought back to life

Posted: Wed Sep 12, 2012 5:32 pm

Northwoods Tom wrote:

zuma wrote:

Sometimes coins gone for years will reappear.

I know you have been a member for a long time, so I'll ask. What has been the longest period of time so far that a coin has been missing before it showed up again?

Hi,

Dont really keep track. But one interesting example is ANA2ZQ. See http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?tracker=ANA2ZQ.

Actually this one has gone missing twice. Once from 2009 to 2011, and a second time from July 2011 to June 2012. Now it is the hands of one of those folks that like to hold on to coins for whatever reason.

This is actually a pretty nice coin. It is an Anthus Laptop coin, that has a hinge to open up like a faux laptop, and was a fairly expenseive coin. Yet, it is still out there.

z