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For the most part I like the text on the WGA stashnotes under “If you found this container by accident:’
But I wonder if we could come up with some short but clear text to discourage muggles from “trading” trackables. As far as a muggle reading it is concerned, the notes give them permission to take anything in the cache as long as they trade for it.
I’m not really sure how to word it. Perhaps something along the lines of: Items with a short code (like BC28S8) are special “game pieces”. Please leave them for people who are playing the geocaching game and know what to do with them.
Not very short I’m afraid, but perhaps someone else could wordsmith it better.
Apparently a lot of non-muggles haven’t taken the time to learn what to do with trackables either. But at least someone who stumbles on the cache and is responsible enough to read the stash-note might be considerate enough to not take a trackable out of circulation.
This is one of my personal key points when teaching new cachers about the game. I have some very nice geocoins that will never leave my possession. I take these to the Geocaching Sessions that I am asked to talk at. I make it VERY CLEAR that these are NOT SWAG!!
Thanks for chiming in on this issue. It should never be skipped over when educating new people about the hunt!
Excellent idea!!!
Oconto...the birthplace of western civilization:)
I believe it’s incumbent on the trackable owner to label the trackable and there’s not much a CO can do.
There’s certainly no harm in adding trackable verbiage to your stash note, but let’s face it, non-cachers who find a box by accident aren’t likely to get deep into the details of a stash note or figure out the difference between swag and trackables if they look the same on the surface.
Therefore, in addition to the dog tag, I would always include a laminated card with DO NOT KEEP ME in red text on one side and a description on the other.
Coins are a different animal and, while you can put them in a sleeve with similar verbiage, they’re more likely to walk away IMO–but probably more likely to walk away with geocaching coin thieves than by accident.
On the Left Side of the Road...I agree that trackable owners probably shouldn’t release their items into the wild without some kind of note. At least not if they want them to possibly stay in circulation for a while. But in my limited experience so far, 3/4 of the trackables I’ve seen don’t have a label/note.
My only real concern is that the current version of the stashnote says: “If you wish to take something, please trade something for others to find and exchange.” If I hadn’t taken the time to educate myself a bit on geocaching before starting, I would have taken that as, “You can have anything in this box as long as you leave something in return.”
Most of the people that I know who spend a lot of time out in the wild are pretty honest folk. Most of them also would either leave the box alone, or would read the stashnote to try to figure out what it was doing out there in the first place.
If I were the one to stumble on a cache without knowing anything about the sport, I would like to know that some of those things in the box (perhaps the most interesting looking ones) are not actually supposed to be taken home and kept for as a souvenir.
BTW, it seems like geocoins are not covered very well in the GC.com intro materials. It took a fair amount of time reading up on geocaching before I learned that it is possible the tracking code might be the only thing identifying some items like geocoins as special. I personally think that is bad design, but it is what it is.
I think that one thing that we all can do as cachers is to add a good “trackable passport” to those that we pickup and lack one. This is a game that we all need to provide a little help to the other “team mates”. I have replaced many a worn out baggie for the travelers that come to stay at my hotel.
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