Are geocoins and travel bugs worth it?

[zuma]

@sandlanders wrote:

Well, 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.

Well, then, thanks for moving it along. I appreciate it, and I am sure all the folks that logged it after you did enjoyed it too. On that particular coin, I recall finding it myself in a cache in Stevens Point without knowing ahead of time it was in there, which is one of the reasons that on a few of my coins I have asked they stay in Wisconsin. However, most are free to travel anywhere.

Zuma

[PCFrog]

I have
36 Trackables
15 known to be missing
8 Probably missing

13 are still active

Knowing what I know now, I only release coins I have defaced with a hole. This only prevents collectors from stealing them. This does not protect them from caches being lost or stolen or cachers losing the trackable. Minus the people who steal the coins, those who just misplace them are the most irritating to me.

Trackable items are not your property and should be treated as if you were borrowing it. (my opinion)

In short it is still nice to set them free.

[zuma]

Here is another one, a Wisconsin geocoin moved today that has been moved 106 times now, mostly in Czechoslavia.

http://www.geocaching.com/track/map_gm.aspx?ID=283370

zuma

[jim1830]

I have always liked putting out coins for others to enjoy, and to see where they go, but it seems like lately they move to a cache or 2, and then go MIA. I’ve cut down quite a bit on the number of coins I buy, and haven’t gotten any new ones for months, for that reason. I still have quite a few floating around, and I will almost always pick up coins when I see them in caches to move along. I will still get new coins and keep putting them out there for others to enjoy, but sadly I feel like I’ve been forced to cut back…

[Grandma & Grandpa]

Every year, our new 6th graders send out a TB. They are packaged in a baggie, have an info printout enclosed, as well as a neon note identifying the TB as a student and school project.

The TB’s we released 2 years ago are about 50% AWOL. Many are in the hands of cachers who do not respond to numerous emails. These are not all rookies – quite a few are veteran cachers who own TB’s themselves. Some have gone missing as caches have been muggled – 3 from this group lasted 3 weeks and got zero miles. However, some have resurfaced after lengthy absences, so we can still hold out hope. And the 50% that are still moving have been all over the place.

The bunch from last fall have fared much better. It looks as though only around 17% are AWOL at this time. A summary of their travels, accurate through the end of May, can be seen by looking up our profile on gc.com – SetonCachers2

We’ll do it again this school year. It is such a terrific cross-curricular activity that pulls in skills from all areas. A new batch of our TB’s will be hitting our caches in late September and into October. Many of you regulars on these forums have been just fantastic in helping to get our kids’ TB’s out and moving, which we greatly appreciate. Your photo’s get color printed and go up on hallway bulletin boards. Your responses to our students’ emails also get printed out, and the kids love getting mail from somebody who had their TB.

I have to admit, I have a real hard time with people who do not respond to simple and polite emails about TB’s they’be been sitting on for months. Sometimes we hear back with explanations that make no sense, and sometimes with “I’m sorry’s” and the TB gets into a cache pretty quick. Our typical timeline is after 2 – 3 months, the cacher gets a note. After that it’s monthly. Eventually, if our emails have been repeatedly ignored, we post a Location Unknown with a pretty blunt note about what’s been going on.

We like TB’s, we’ll keep doing them, but with the full expectation that many of them are going to drop out of sight. BTW, our personal collection has about the same death rate…

cYa, Grandpa Jim

[-cheeto-]

Trackable items are not your property

If you release them into the wild that’s semi-true. You have every right to pull them back from circulation if they are registered under your user account which gives you more “ownership” rights than just any other cacher moving them around.

If you don’t release them and simply activate them or leave them unactivated then they certainly are “your property”.

[labrat_wr]

@-cheeto- wrote:

Trackable items are not your property

If you release them into the wild that’s semi-true. You have every right to pull them back from circulation if they are registered under your user account which gives you more “ownership” rights than just any other cacher moving them around.

If you don’t release them and simply activate them or leave them unactivated then they certainly are “your property”.

I’m thinking Frog’s comment was preaching to the masses and not the traveler’s owner, though -cheeto’s message rings true. If you manage to recover one of your own released travelers, you have all the rights in the world to pull it from circulation. Personally, of the 37 trackables I have out there, about 1/3 are “unknown locations” a few others in hands that have not been active in the last 4-6 months. On the other hand I have a few that I get updates on once or twice a week (most of these are overseas – seems they have more respect for other’s property).

I also currently have about 30 unactivated geocoins that I don’t know what I might do with them. Some may be gifted, some FTF prizes, others might just end up being sold off one day. Not sure how many may just be released to the wild though, if a mission statement comes up that fits the coin, I wouldn’t hesitate to release it.

Disclaimer : Always answering to a higher power.

[seldom|seen]

I currently have:

8 Geocoins: 5 Released (1 MIA) and 3 Personal Stash
19 Travel Bugs: 12 travelers (2 MIA), 4 are tied to caches, and 3 are Personal Stash.

I’ve only had a few go missing and was able to replace those quickly as I try to create duplicates of everything I create, caches and TB’s alike.

Fortunately I seem to fare better than most when it comes to Trackables, and am not as jaded as some.

I do feel the pain when Trackables go missing on my watch. I always make an attempt to replace them with something of equal or greater value unless the owner specifically tells me not to bother.

To date I’ve replaced 3 coins and 2 trackables. As long as it doesn’t overwhelm me, I will continue to do so. I understand the value of Trackables having created so many unique ones of my own. It also pains me to see them languish in caches for too long, but I do not get too worked up when they are in someone’s possession as I trust they are being taken care of. I have one, Marrakesh Express, that is too large for all but large ammo cans and the poor soul who picked it up has been looking for a decent cache to stick it in for over a year now. She did, however, take it on a very long journey and subsequently logged it into a cache on the other side of the globe, which more than makes up for the TB’s stasis.

The exception to the last comment is, of course, those who have no appreciation for the owner’s intent as has been stated. At the very least, respond to e-mail inquiry’s about a trackables status so the owner don’t loose sleep thinking it’s gone for good. I guess those folk do irritate me to a degree. I’ve had a few in the hands of the unresponsive type and it does get irritating.

[Crow-T-Robot]

I’ve definitely become jaded in regards to geocoins. I don’t buy alot of them, but the ones I do, I keep in my own collection. I’ve only released two into the wild and am sitting at 50/50 on those…one is moving, the other is gone. I just love the look of coins and can’t get past the thought that releasing them is just like throwing them away. Same goes for defacing a coin in hopes of deterring would-be thieves. I just can’t bring myself to do it. I wouldn’t say I’m done releasing coins. I like having other cachers discovering and moving them…but it’ll be some of the cheap-o coins that I release, not something that I would keep for my collection.

TB’s are a different story. I’m willing to release bugs without reservation. They tend to keep moving and pick up stories and spread the fun of moving trackables around to more cachers. I only have two out myself, but that’s only because I’ve focused on other things lately. I’m guessing that when the winter arrives, I’ll turn my attention back to travel bugs and get a few more released.

Bruce

[DCexplorer]

Thanks to all for their input. It was very informative. I have decided to release my first trackable, a Brett Favre Travel Bug Coin. It’ll be interesting to watch and see how it moves.

Its number is: TB2RR42

[labrat_wr]

Glad to hear about your first trackable. May it have a long career 😀

Disclaimer : Always answering to a higher power.

[-cheeto-]

Live long and prosper TB

[Mathman]

@labrat_wr wrote:

Glad to hear about your first trackable. May it have a long career 😀

Maybe it will last 18 years too!

Unless of course you place it in a cache and then run back to take it out and keep it, then change your mind and put it back in a cache and …so on….

[Crow-T-Robot]

@Mathman wrote:

@labrat_wr wrote:

Glad to hear about your first trackable. May it have a long career 😀

Maybe it will last 18 years too!

Unless of course you place it in a cache and then run back to take it out and keep it, then change your mind and put it back in a cache and …so on….

But after 18 seasons, it’ll have alot of caches to its name.

Bruce

[furfool]

@DCexplorer wrote:

Thanks to all for their input. It was very informative. I have decided to release my first trackable, a Brett Favre Travel Bug Coin. It’ll be interesting to watch and see how it moves.

Its number is: TB2RR42

I hope whoever retrieves it will be able to make a decision on which cache to place it in.

[Author]

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