› Forums › Geocaching in Wisconsin › General › Are geocoins and travel bugs worth it?
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Joey_Skywalker.
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07/27/2009 at 1:48 am #1728584
Are geocoins and travel bugs worth it? I have lots of caches where folks are leaving logs where the expected coin or travel bug they were looking for is missing. These things cost money, and seem to disappear quite easily.
Anybody have stuff that disappears almost instantly, or do coins and bugs really float around year after year? Seems to me like an exercise in frustration, but perhaps I’m incorrect.
07/27/2009 at 2:25 am #1911387Worth it? well, that can be a two way street. It does depend on who happens to find and move the travelers whether coin or TB. Some are really good at moving them as per their missions or at least move them and not hold them forever. Some are not good, as they are either grabbed as swag by someone new or stolen into someone’s private collection. Some disappear quickly, some travel often.
here is a link to a discussion that was on the forum not long ago.
http://wi-geocaching.com/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=7898
Disclaimer : Always answering to a higher power.
07/27/2009 at 2:54 am #1911388Our first TB disappeared from the first cache it was in and was never heard from again. Others we’ve sent out have done great and are still on the move. It’s a crap shoot, but it is pretty disappointing when one goes MIA. Mostly, we’d like to think it’s due to ignorance rather than maliciousness. We’ll probably send more out, but we have become more selective in choosing caches in which to drop them.
07/27/2009 at 2:55 am #1911389Arghh! Don’t get me started on that again 🙄
Oconto...the birthplace of western civilization:)
07/27/2009 at 2:56 am #1911390I read that thread, which is mostly about bugs that came back after long absences. What about stuff just going away for good?
07/27/2009 at 3:00 am #1911391We wouldn’t invest in coins meant to travel. Simply too expensive and too likely to go missing. So they’re not “worth it.”
Tags are a little better, and usually the uglier the bug the more likely it is to last.
The good news is that sometimes both TBs and coins show up after being missing for some time. But I still wouldn’t buy a coin.
On the Left Side of the Road...07/27/2009 at 3:21 am #1911392I just had a geocoin resurface after over a year. Same person had it and it was dropped into a cache in Germany after no responses to multiple emails to the holder over the last year.
There is hope after all…
07/27/2009 at 3:59 am #1911393You can sometimes find geo-coins for sale that end up being cheaper than TBs. I also find that if you damage the coin before sending it out, it doesn’t disappear… or at least not as fast. I’ve been drilling holes in the coins and attaching a tag that says not to keep it, but to treat it like a travel bug and keep it moving.
07/27/2009 at 1:19 pm #1911394I’ve heard that a lot of coin vendors at the mega-events are actually selling stolen coins from caches. No personal experience here, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
07/27/2009 at 1:46 pm #1911395stolen coins from caches
If it’s trackable and you don’t own the activated coin online what’s the point? To own the metal and enamel?
That probably highlights the main difference between a geocoin and a travel bug. Geocoins are seen as collectibles. I am sure they are much more attractive to muggles and newbie cachers. I am sure some will argue that some travel bugs out there are “collectible” but in all fairness, most are just a common item with a tag attached in an old zip loc baggie that doesn’t zip and worn out papers and other things.
The first geocoin I ever found (in one of the first caches I ever found) was in a nice plastic protector with a hole drilled through the center of the coin and protector and another personalized tag attached. This made it look pretty “official” as in a “game piece” and less like a collectible. As a newbie, I was not tempted in any way to keep it. Ads a bit of support for the idea of drilling and adding a tag.
07/27/2009 at 1:56 pm #1911396When I first started, I found quite a few caches before ever finding my first trackable, which was a TB. Then there were a bunch more caches before finding my first coin. When I found it, I thought it was the coolest thing. Now, I heard about them before ever finding them, so I knew what I was supposed to do with them. Even when looking them over, the tracking number stuck out like a sore thumb. Plus they had a small paper “track at <a class="postlink" href="http://www.
“>www.
” in the vinyl sleeve.I remember reading a while back that common sense died. Maybe that was true?
07/27/2009 at 2:23 pm #1911397@-cheeto- wrote:
The first geocoin I ever found (in one of the first caches I ever found) was in a nice plastic protector with a hole drilled through the center of the coin and protector and another personalized tag attached. This made it look pretty “official” as in a “game piece” and less like a collectible. As a newbie, I was not tempted in any way to keep it. Ads a bit of support for the idea of drilling and adding a tag.
I think in the other thread on this topic, or some thread about the Geobash, that one of the coin “vendors” there was selling drilled coins.
I did this with one coin we got as a prize a while back but it seemed like such a desecration that I haven’t done it since. I also do not buy any coins because sooner or later I know they will disappear. Since you’ll likely never see the coin again either way (after all the point is to travel), TB tags seem safer and you can put them on what you want. And like I said the ugly ones and ones that aren’t attractive to kids last longer. A kid might take the Polly Pocket TB and her newbie parents might not realize it’s a trackable, but said kid is not likely to take a wooden barn peg, to use an example.
Again we don’t buy any coins but we have received a few as prizes. In those cases, we take the generic card (Oak Coins, whatever it says) out of the plastic sleeve and add a message that says “This coin is not to take, it belongs to someone, it is meant to travel, log on geocaching.com” or something to that effect. The trackable language on a coin is simply too small to be seen unless you know what you are looking for.
This won’t deter coin theives, but hopefully it will alert newbies that they are not trading items, for at least as long as the plastic sleeves hold up.
With that said, I give the “Volunteer Reviewer” coin we recently released about a 1% chance of making it to a third cache.
On the Left Side of the Road...07/27/2009 at 5:31 pm #1911398@furfool wrote:
I’ve heard that a lot of coin vendors at the mega-events are actually selling stolen coins from caches. No personal experience here, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
We were unable to go this year, but last year Robin traded several of her unactivated coins for coins that were represented as unactivated, but turned out to be stolen, so yes, unfortunately, that does happen.
zuma
07/27/2009 at 5:50 pm #1911399@DCexplorer wrote:
Are geocoins and travel bugs worth it? I have lots of caches where folks are leaving logs where the expected coin or travel bug they were looking for is missing. These things cost money, and seem to disappear quite easily.
Anybody have that disappears almost instantly, or do coins and bugs really float around year after year? Seems to me like an exercise in frustration, but perhaps I’m incorrect.
I have sent 103 coins out traveling, most out for 2-3 years. About 40% are still traveling, and about 60% have gone missing. Basically, that means if you want to keep coins to travel, you have to place more than one, because it is just a sad fact that you are going to get about a 30% loss per year out.
This means a contribution to the sport of $800 – $1000, and your question “Is it worth it?” is a valid question. To me, since I enjoy finding coins while I cache, it only seems fair to pay it forward and participate in getting coins into circulation. This is as old fashioned as the Golden Rule, but I think it better that way.
Here are a few links to the maps of coins that have traveled well:
http://www.geocaching.com/track/map_gm.aspx?ID=1032822
http://www.geocaching.com/track/map_gm.aspx?ID=1032822
http://www.geocaching.com/track/map_gm.aspx?ID=1115497
http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=357021
That last one is the third coin I released, and has been out for over 3 years now. Now it is in Australia.
zuma
07/27/2009 at 6:20 pm #1911400Well, zuma, a coin of yours (Zuma’s Coin Town Geocoin) was the first trackable we ever moved. It never occurred to us to keep it, and it’s mission was well-defined. We’d been caching maybe three weeks when we found it, and we were excited to be able to “play the game”. It’s still out there with almost 1900 miles on it, sticking closely to its goal of visiting Wisconsin caches.
Still like seeing pretty coins and neat trackables, and we take photos of ones we move, but we haven’t put out any ourselves. Have a Wisconsin cow we want to put out, but those things are just too dang cute for someone to resist. Cacher education is a solution, along with caching ethics, but that’s the case with anything in this sport. Some get it, some don’t.
Guess it’s a crap shoot–take the gamble and be willing to take your losses if you want the enjoyment of trackables. Stick to TBs if coins go missing too often for you.
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