Geocoin thieves!

[LDove]

😡 Has anyone else noticed the amount of geocoins that are being stolen? I am getting frustrated as I have hurried to find a cache with an interesting coin only to find it has been stolen. I had some new ones to put out, but I am rethinking that decision. I can’t imagine having fun looking at coins you have stolen from someone else when you could have BOUGHT your own for around 10 bucks. 🙄 Vented and now feel better…

[LightningBugs Mum]

I just marked as missing a geocoin I sent out that traveled over 3000 miles before disappearing in Missouri. Disappointing, but thems the breaks I guess. I have had missing bugs resurface, so there is always a glimmer of hope.

At least with coins, I can understand why some people might keep them. But why do they keep Jeeps and regular TBs??? They’re just cheap toys fer cryin out loud!

[PCFrog]

@LightningBugs Mum wrote:

They’re just cheap toys fer cryin out loud!

Cheap toys for people with cheap morals.

[shine_like_a_star]

I bought five of the last batch of WI coins, and I’m hesitant to put them out for these reasons. I think I’ll try releasing one on my one-hundredth find and see how it does out in the geoworld.

-katy-

[marc_54140]

😕 Well, everyone knows they have a high collectibility value. so, if you put one out, what do you expect?

I own two. Activiated one, and put in out. So far, it’s still there. Involves a hike of about 1-2 miles rounad trip, and so the cache does not get much activitiy. Another coin or two that I picked up elsewhere I put in a puzzle cache.

[LDove]

😈 Yep, I do the same thing Marc. When I am lucky enough to find one – I try to put them in caches that are a bit of a walk or a tricky to find hoping that will deter it from getting stolen. This logic did not work recently, however, when I found a screw geocoin and placed it in a park that was easy to get to, but took a little work to find the cache. Alas, it has gone missing. I don’t understand either how they can become collectable if you steal them. You can’t ever claim them, so I would think they would lose their value??? They just become a piece of metal with painting on it if you can’t log it as your own, track it or share it with others.

[djwini]

i own two wisconsin geocoins. the first i activated and am using to track myself. it is never going out into the world. the seconed is still sitting in its wrapper at home. i also picked up the coin from the wga campout as a souveneer. after seeing people with books with cute little pockets for the geocoins, i decided not to release any. they are collectable. if you are trying to collect as many different coins as possible to fill your book, what does it matter if you don’t or can’t log them. no one is going to make note of all the numbers and check up on them to see if they are legitimately yours. $10 is too much to lose. my tb’s are mostly still out there, but of course some have gone missing. and mine are all attached to a block of wood, so that is not what people are keeping them for.

[onesearching2find]

I have 12 coins out in circulation. I just checked and as far as I can tell so far none of them have gone missing. It’s kind of cool to see that I have one in England and one in Alaska. I hope that if more coins are out in the wild they will lose a little of their novelty and be less likely to be stolen. One thing that I did to hopefully help them remain in circulation was to print a “cover” for the coin holder to inform people that the coin was to be placed in an other cache. I think that some coins are just taken in error by someone who doesn’t know that they are not just regular swag. It’s undeniable that some coins are purposely stolen; it’s sad to say that geocaching is not immune to unscrupulous people. I think, as a whole, there are by far more good people (who happen to geocache) than bad. So I will continue to place coins in the wild, for the benefit of all the good geocachers that I know – or know only by a log.

[kckennelcrew]

I try to buy at least three of the same coin so I can keep one in a collection, send one out into the geoworld and sell the other one or more on ebay to cover the cost of the one I keep and the one I sent out. That way if it gets stolen, I am not out anything. I do put them in a bag with a note warning them that this is an “activated” coin and cannot be transferred or altered. I also warn them that if someone were to get the number off the coin and I find out that it was stolen…well I just tell them that I have several ways of dealing with them. I have sent out a couple of coins just in a holder to see how long they make it.

[Team Vaughan]

Its good to see Im not the only one that has this same thought. About every other coin that pops up around me seems to disappear. 😥 As for that screwcoin lonesomedove, I live within 5 minutes walking distance of that cache, it was gone real quick.

[cacheseekers]

We just found our first Geocoin in a cache while we’re on vacation. We’ll be placing it out soon in the Madison area. Hopefully that one wont be ‘looted’ 😉

[LightningBugs Mum]

I’ve released 13 geocoins of various kinds. They have all been attached to a card that says they are not to be kept and should move from cache to cache. At this point I have only had to mark 2 as missing – which is actually a better percentage than my regular TBs. I get a lot of gratitude from people when they find them, so I think it has been worth it – so far anyway.

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