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In an effort to get more cachers in our area been making some trades for geocoins. I’m visiting caches I already done along with new ones and dropping geocoins in them. I hope that with the additional geocoins in the area more people will be tempted to cache in the back woods. I will be adding coins over the next few weeks to more caches. So, if you have not cached in our area before or it’s been awhile take a look at the coins that are showing up.
Zip code for area reference 54656
I’m also making a few more caches as well directly in my area. I hope that those who can will possible plan a trip in this area.
Ah yes, the land of cranberry bogs – right off of I94. Guess I should stop sometime on my waythrough!
Team LightningBugs
* * * * * * * * * *It’s a nice place save for that whole cranfest business . I have family there and own land nearby.
As stated I started trading and buying coins to help get more coins in this area and also to attract cachers for around the state to this part. This has worked to some degree but I quite disappointed in the 1st week.
I know it’s part of the game but I can’t help but be just a little dismayed from the recent activity due to the coins being placed in caches.
I was worried that a single person would swoop by and hit all the caches with coins and grab them but thought that chance was rather remote. Well fat chance – a majority of the coins were picked up by a single person.
For every two coins I got I gave one my geocoins away. Not only that, most of the coins were not prepped to go in caches so I bought nice cases for the coins to go into. I also purchased quite a few coins lately as well to be released. Spent the time making sure they had nice pretty label so people would know they were not trade items and then spending the gas and time going out and placing the coins in caches in the area that I already been to.
The fact one person collected a majority of the coins to me is only partially annoying since it kind of goes against etiquette (leave some for others) is the fact he out of state and the coins will no longer be even around here defeating the whole point of my project.
Then to top it off 2 coins are already being reported missing. Granted they could still be in hands of a cacher that did not have the chance to log them yet. However, from the post others have made online, there are people coming to the caches and not logging online that they were there.
Now when you look at my area 3 coins are listed but 2 of them are already MIA. Like I said they might still show but all things considered I lean to the fact they are gone.
I spent quite a lot of money trying to get coins in this area.
$50 of PCFrog geocoins
$8.60 in shipping
$26.25 for cases
$45.00 purchasing coins (conservative number here)$129.85 Total (so far)
I still have a few more coins to drop since they are ones from trades and are not mine. I think I however will not release anymore of my coins that I bought until I’m sure there is no coin thief. If that’s the case I guess I will just sell the rest of the coins I have on ebay to recoup some of the cost I spent on those I have yet to activate.
I will restate I know it happens and that it’s a risk. I can still be somewhat disappointed that within the 1st week (4 days actually) all the risk and disappointments occurred. Oh well…
I know what you mean… I had the same problem when I dropped a bunch of TBs last summer. They were all picked up by the same person, within hours of being dropped and they hung on to them for months.
Geocoins are a nice side bonus to geocaching. However, they have an obvious side effect, in that they are EXTREMELY collectible. Because of that I wonder how long they might last, in the wild that is.
My collecting has been limited to the pretty icons on the trackables page.
On a similar note, we put a WJTB in a local series cache both as a celebration of a milestone find and to attract more people to the cache. The next day, someone who had already found the cache went back and took the WJTB. This person has yet to put this bug into another cache, so I guess he is collecting it. This is very annoying to me, and it wasn’t even my bug, so I can imagine your feelings when people nab your coins and don’t redrop them.
That said, I doubt that many people choose their caching locations by whether or not there is a bug or coin in the caches. I enjoy finding and moving the travellers, but I enjoy finding a nice location, a great hike, a fun puzzle, or a clever hide much more. I think you can attract people more by promoting the caches on this forum, nominating COTM candidates, posting bookmark lists, and generally talking up the area. You might even want to create a collective cache, where people have to find many area caches to get the coordinates for your final. You could then put your coins in this cache. I doubt that any coin thief is going to find 20 or 30 area caches just to get some coins. I think that people seem to like these “series with a final” type of caches, and I bet that most of the cache placers in your area would be willing to let their caches become part of your “collective”.
Edited to preserve the anonymity of the guilty.
[This message has been edited by Team Deejay (edited 03-22-2006).]
That stinks that something like that would happen. Kudos to you on time, effort, and $$ that you put into the project. Keep up the good work
That’s too bad. I’d have to agree with Team Deejay though that Geocoins are just too valuable and collectible to be used as bait in caches. (I guess that’s part of why I don’t see the point in them, but that’s just me…)
If you want to get a bunch of cachers into your area, try doing what I did for Clue. I hid a big series of caches, but didn’t have them approved until a specific date on which I also held a breakfast event to kick off the series. I attracted probably 100 cachers ranging from Idaho to Ohio who had a blast trying to be the first to finish the series as well as grab some of the other caches in the area.
I recently let my first USA geocoin go into the wild, it was picked up on the 6th, and still in the hands of the picker upper. Etiquette states in the TOS 2 weeks max, it is annoying. To prevent ‘collectors’ from pocketing it, I banged it up, tried to drill a hole in it, but only made a big dimple, taking the collectiveness out of it. Hopfully he will place it soon ,,, I haven’t even contacted him yet, but its starting to try my patience.
http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=354191Hi there Voigt54601!
I checked the profile of the person that has your geocoin. He/she hasn’t visited gc.com since March 7, and is also in the army reserve (so maybe off doing something right now). The log does include intentions to drop off the coin too.
Typically, if I have a bug or coin for longer than 2 weeks, I let the owner know that I have it & will place it. Some people don’t. This person has been geocaching since 2001, so it’s not someone who doesn’t know the game.
Drop him/her a line and make sure all is well with your coin! That might help it get out right away.
Bec
Just another datapoint: our first geocoin ever (a Wisconsin coin) was stolen from the cache we placed it in earlier this year. The thief didn’t log the find or sign the logbook (obviously). I knew it would probably go “missing” eventually, but didn’t think it would happen at the first cache. Don’t know if we’ll release our remaining coins. If we do, it will probably be in a long, difficult multi so if they are going to steal it, they’ll have to work to get it.
I do agree that caches with bugs and coins are favored over similar caches in a given area. But the further away someone is, the less attractive the cache is and at some point the bug/coin won’t have any effect.
thanks for the tip
I’ll wait longer … im patient for the most part
quote:
Originally posted by Voigt54601:
thanks for the tipI’ll wait longer … im patient for the most part
I’m the same way!
Bec
I had a geocoin held on to by a new cacher for 4 months, then was just let go very recently. Fortunately, the people who had it were communicative so I didn’t worry about it too much.
Because of this thread, I thought I should check the status of a few of my others that have been languishing in caches for a while. One is still there, the other is not. I emailed somebody about it, but if I don’t hear back, I will have to mark it as missing. At least it went 1700 miles first – better than some of my ordinary travel bugs.
Team LightningBugs
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