Swag gripe thread…

[Decrepit]

🙁 I know it’s disappointing when I take my nephews along and there is nothing for them to trade in the cache. I always try to leave at least two or three good cache items for kids. With that said, I also have 5 tote boxes full of loot that I have collected in the past year and half that I intend to deposit into caches this year. 😉 I need the room! Unfortunately, caching will have to wait a bit longer. One knee is fixed (stitches come out on Monday) and then it’s time to look at scheduling the other knee. But once I’m back on the trails, be sure to look for some well stocked cache boxes! 😀

[Ry and Ny]

This is something that, being new to this, I’ve been curious about. I work for a promotional products company (think “your logo here”) and I get tons of “worthless” swag to trade in. Please let me paint this picture and let me know if you think I’m doing okay.

Find #1: Took a lanyard, left a pocket coolie. A pocket coolie is basically a thin, neoprene can cooler that can be folded down. I think I’m good on this one.

Find #2: Took a knight figure (more to follow on this later). Left a car visor sunglass clip. The knight figure had a broken sword. I was saddened by the inclusion of one plastic butterfly wing (where was the rest?), a broken guitar pick (see item #1), a couple of cacher cards (wanted to take one to collect them, but didn’t have equivalent personalized trade item in return), and a few busines cards (honestly, I’m more likely to avoid your business if you leave something like that there).

Now, I know the knight figure for a kid, even with the broken off sword, is probably cooler for a kid than the visor sunglass keeper that I left. It wasn’t a playground cache, but WAS in a city park.

We’re both avid (she current, me former) World of Warcraft players (please, save the derisive comments…you’re no less geeky than we are by default playing this game 😆 ). She’s a graphic artist by trade, I’m a semi-humorous storyteller by hobby (along with model/high powered rocketry and now geocaching). We are going to set up a webpage to take our WoW characters on a trip through geocaching, complete with superimposed pictures of our characters over the photos we take of our own RL caching adventures. Needless to say, the knight figure fits right into this theme, perhaps as a totem or instead as a potential companion for our characters’ adventures. We both think that would be a hoot and our friends who play WoW and get the concept of Geocaching agree. Your mileage may vary.

To finally get back to the point at hand, is this too selfish to take what we did and leave what we did (picked the best thing I had on me at the moment)? We’re really just looking for souvenirs from caching and want to leave more than we picked up, but it’s hard to pick the tastes of the next finder. Alternatively, is it okay to grab the laminated cacher card w/o being able to trade for same, or should that stay with the cache?

[cheezehead]

Here is a couple of log I recieved today:

March 24 by Hästtanten (338 found)
this was a really wellkept cache in a very nice place.
Picked up a book and a silly string + took a TB on a ride.
Left a button and a 5$ bill.
Thanks for this one!
[view this log on a separate page]

March 24 by Hästtantens syster (15 found)
Nicest cache I’ve ever seen. Thank you. Stuff for little kids, dogs and big kids. Keep this one nice. Thanks.
[view this log on a separate page]

I personally do not look to trade anything unless I find something I really like, then I swap a buck or something else if I have something on me like a pin on compass. For me it’s the hunt.

[LDove]

What do we do with the swag we find? We are like little kids and feel really excited when we find one of two things. A keychain or a lapel pin. The lapel pins we have on a board that we use for pins we collect when we travel, it is getting about 2/3 full and is very nice to look at. The keychains we hang on their own tree around the holidays. I leave stuff that I hope is creative, dove pins, pathtags, handmade geocaching pins, Mexican coins. I love to also find handmade items and have one of djwini’s angel pins and lost by 7s wooden nickels – which are always a treat to find too. 😀

[Frizz]

I seldom take anything from a cache, however I have grabbed a few things that are really nice. One of the nicest items I found was a compass zipper pull with the geocaching logo on it. At almost every cache I visit (except the micros) I leave one of my Team Bald 2.5 pocket combs. These come in four colors, and are personalized with the team members names. They have proved to be a fun personalized trading item. Contrary to some of the rumors going around, these combs DO have teeth! In the past, I have found items in the dollar rack at hardware stores, such as magnifying glasses, tweezers, and inexpensive tools. Geocaching, for me, has become more focused on the hunt, the exercise, and the people I get to meet, and less about the trading.

[greyhounder]

I like to trade for signature items. Otherwise, unless I see something really cool (once I found a wind-up, hopping eyeball) I don’t trade. Sometimes I just leave some extra swag, especially if I think the cache is a little depleted. I will take out food, or inappropriate items however.

Bec

[jenhen1]

I carry a ton of trading stuff on me when I’m geocaching mainly for restocking depleted caches. I’m a big proponent of well stocked caches, just because it’s kind of fun to finger through the items, just in case there’s something worth trading for. To keep it interesting I’ve started collecting the poker chips that some poeple leave, so there’s always something to look for when we hit a cache. Someday maybe I’ll have a full set!

One of the more disturbing things I’ve seen while geocaching was at a cache in Irvine Park in Chippewa Falls that was placed as part of last year’s CV Event. I found it about 2 months after the start of the event and it was completely empty except for a bunch of signature cards and the log. I read through the log and the first 2 logs commented on what a great cache it was filled with alot of great stuff! two months later it was completely empty. What disturbed me was that nearly all of the logs and most of the participants in the event were fairly hardcore geocachers from all over the state. I’m not saying the cache couldn’t have been muggled but the sad state of the cache just made me wonder about how much people cared about the cache when it was found.

Anyway, on a positive not, a cacher named Badpaul has a cache near the Rice Lake area where if you take the time to search for the bonus cache that goes along with it, you are treated to a bonus cache filled with some of his homemade stained glass figurines and Christmas ornaments that you are encouraged to trade for. It’s the awesome surprises like that make me feel like there is some value to the trading aspect of geocaching. I know in my caches some of the caches that you really have to work for, I’ll try and stock some items that are worth more so that the finder has perhaps a little more of a reward for taking the effort to find it. Going into a cache with low expectations of what you may find just makes it all the better when there is actually something worth trading for!!!

Trade up or trade even, too.

[Trekkin and Birdin]

Count me as another who never thought about the fact that coins are not trade items. We usually just sign logs and trade coins, but on rare occasions, we’ve left coins in exchange for something in the cache…like last Thursday, a set of Packer cards. Won’t do that anymore, I’m glad it was put in this light.

We carry stuff to put in caches with almost nothing…if we remember to bring the swag bag along. We don’t have little ones coming with us, but will admit to every now and then finding something really fun for ourselves. I think my favorite is a little handmade folk art badger, made by someone who calls herself ” The Artful Badger.” Luckily, we had some items along that time so I could trade for it.

At first, I stocked our caches very well, but was discouraged, as others comment, on the way that stock dwindled quickly. We’re putting together the final for a mystery one that will have a nice prize for those who find it, though. [;)] Timberline Echoes says he won’t bother with it, cause he can “cash in” on this prize anytime he wants! We’ll see about that!

[HOT TROT]

So what does it say if you put out a brand new ammo box, with only a log in it?

[gotta run]

@HOT TROT wrote:

So what does it say if you put out a brand new ammo box, with only a log in it?

It says you want a cache that is easy to find, or you are a cheap b*****d 😆

On the Left Side of the Road...

[2CraziesMSN]

@HOT TROT wrote:

So what does it say if you put out a brand new ammo box, with only a log in it?

You call him HOT TROT. LOL 😆

[Timberline Echoes]

WE rarely trade goods anymore but when ET comes with us we tell him we thought we read that there were M&Ms in the cache. We always carry a bag of them in our pocket for him, which we sneak into the cache before he looks. The other day when we hiked over 2.5 miles in on the snowmo trail he was really looking forward to the treat. As he dug through the stash to find them he took a dinasaur first. I thought my trick was going to fail until he actually saw the M&Ms so he quickly traded the dinasuar back in. I would not leave M&Ms in a cache as the skunks are now out and bear will be soon.
TE

[2CraziesMSN]

I just leave a Marble, unless there is a neat item in cache. It is about the hunt for it and to see what is in the cache. 😀

PS HOT TROT does put out good stuff in his cache

[furfool]

Well, furfool-jr finally got started on sorting through his toys. He had a pretty good size box, full I might add, ready to be donated. I asked him if he was keeping any for trading purposes and he said “no”. What a shame. He had dinos, lizards and snakes. He had 6″ tall wrestling figurines. Some junkier stuff too. But what I dug out for some swag is about twenty Match Box and Hot Wheels cars. Some were still in the packages. I wish I could have kept more stuff but he wanted to donate the rest. I’m thinking of a toy car themed cache if we ever find the right place to set one up.
Has anybody put out a cache with a specific theme? And if so, did it stay to that theme pretty well or was it a lost cause after a couple of weeks? The restocking of these toy cars might be a bit pricey after a while.

[Sagasu]

I’ve seen several theme caches that have survived for as long as I’ve been caching, and we have one ourselves, in fact our first cache. I also do carry a couple matchbox cars with me at all times.

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