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i think the people that put out the coins are very brave. i have a small collection that i have activated, and then archive them to one of my dead caches so they aren’t in my live listing. when i buy coins it is usually one for my collection and 1 or 2 to use as gifts to friends or fellow cachers. i use tb’s to put into caches. they go missing too, but cost less than the coins.
My daughter bought me a GC for Christmas a couple of years ago…my first one. It ended up in the hands of a newbie in Texas last summer and hasn’t moved since despite several increasingly belligerent e-mails…not even a response. I bought two of the 2008 geocows and decided that their mission is to stay in Wisconsin…maybe WI cachers are more considerate??? So far, so good.
I also have several TB’s on the road, of which a couple have disappeared…tried tracking via the logs with no luck. But I was assured by one cacher whose TB had gone missing that it miraculously reappeared after two years of MIA and not to give up hope. My Packermobile TB has visited NFL stadiums in Baltimore and Seattle, and has recently been placed in Indianapolis…football fans are great[:D]
I think I’ll stick with TB’s in the future though. They do seem to have a longer life.
I love seeing and moving trackables, because each one seems to have a story…an adventure to tell of the places it’s been. It’s interesting to read the missions, the logs, and to add to the adventure[:D]Oconto...the birthplace of western civilization:)
On a happy note, our TB that was missing for nearly 2 years, showed up a few weeks ago and was delivered to it’s destination on CA. It was a photo of a handicapped gal we take care, she helped us send it to her Aunt and Uncle who are not cachers. It went missing and the last people that had it never replied to us. We were sure it was a lost cause, but then a few weeks ago a cacher found a cache stuffed full of 35 “lost” TBs and coins. The cacher quickly got them all moving again. Another team grabbed it and contacted us via e-mails and delivered right to Uncle Mike’s door.
TE@ldove wrote:
If they were better packaged and marked when first sent out, I think a few less would get stolen.
As I said near the beginning of this thread I have drilled and tagged coins and coins not marked at all and the ones with the metal tag attached stating it is not a collectable or swag but a coin on a mission and needs to be logged and moved onto another cache disappear all most as fast as the untagged coins.
Going back and looking at all the coins of mine that are missing or have showed up later it seems the biggest problem is that people take and move them without logging them or logging them incorrectly.
I got a notification yesterday that a person discovered one of my coins and that they were going to move it to another part of the country. I mailed them questioning if they took the coin or left it and explained the correct way to log coins but have not heard back from them yet.
I don’t buy as many coins as I use to just because money is tight for us right now. But when I do get a coin I buy two of them, one for my collection and one to be sent out traveling. Yeah I know it will eventually go missing but the enjoyment I get out of the logs and seeing where it travels to still far out weighs the dissapointment of when it goes missing.
@rsplash40 wrote:
Well if nothing, this thread has convinced me to never release the coins I have…
Ditto. Especially the coins our kids received as gifts. Really hard to explain to them how we practice “don’t take it unless you intend to move it” etiquette, only to have to explain how their own coins get stolen.
On the Left Side of the Road...I was more referring to the ones I have seen that literally have NO identification on them whatsoever – that they are even a movable item. Basically just the coin in the little plastic bag or worse yet, no bag at all, just the coin floating around. Some have such small numbers and letters that beginners may not even notice that and just keep them thinking they were swag. At least I have enjoyed a few of your coins Bugsmasher! Several of them have passed through our hands at one time or another. 😀 @bugsmasher69 wrote:
@ldove wrote:
If they were better packaged and marked when first sent out, I think a few less would get stolen.
As I said near the beginning of this thread I have drilled and tagged coins and coins not marked at all and the ones with the metal tag attached stating it is not a collectable or swag but a coin on a mission and needs to be logged and moved onto another cache disappear all most as fast as the untagged coins.
Going back and looking at all the coins of mine that are missing or have showed up later it seems the biggest problem is that people take and move them without logging them or logging them incorrectly.
I got a notification yesterday that a person discovered one of my coins and that they were going to move it to another part of the country. I mailed them questioning if they took the coin or left it and explained the correct way to log coins but have not heard back from them yet.
I don’t buy as many coins as I use to just because money is tight for us right now. But when I do get a coin I buy two of them, one for my collection and one to be sent out traveling. Yeah I know it will eventually go missing but the enjoyment I get out of the logs and seeing where it travels to still far out weighs the dissapointment of when it goes missing.
One of my favirite coins is the “Geocacher Need Maintainance” coin that I obtained a couple of years ago when I spent a summer nursing a broken leg. I let others discover the coin, but was reluctant to put it into a cache. A year or so ago, my friend and fellow cacher RSplash40 broke his leg, and I decided to finally give the coin a mission. I gave it to him, and asked that he keep it until he recovered, and then pass it on to another injured cacher, but not put it into a cahe. So far it has help “cure” about 4 of us. I hope that none of you ever have a reason to posess this coin!
I am a coin collector (not geocoin) and have very little interest in growing a huge collection of these as a “coin”. I will usually keep them (new unactivated ones) and when the time is right, release them. Most of the geocoins I have released are either missing or have no recent logs on them. Same thing goes for my released travel bugs. Have had many of the travel bugs we made drop off the map as well. However, this does not discourage me. Here’s a story to put it into perspective:
When I first started geocaching I had traveled on business to Georgia. On one of my very first cache finds, I located a “Caching With Kids” geocoin. Had no clue what Geocoins were.
I took it back with me to Wisconsin as I was planning on showing my kids about geocaching and that fit perfectly with the coin and it’s mission.
For me, finding that single geocoin is one of the many things that intrigued me about this hobby. Who would put such a neat item out into the world? Even then I understood that these types of items probably disappear quickly never to be seen again. Yet here one was for me to choose to move along in the spirit of the game.
I share this story because this is the main reason I still release geocoins. I release them with the hopes that someone will enjoy finding one for the first time. I release them with the hopes that someone will actually follow it’s mission and log that they had fun doing so. Hopefully they will enjoy moving one of mine around. I don’t hope for a coin to move 35,000 miles. I hope for someone to enjoy moving one of these around like I did for the first time. I enjoy reading the “trackables” logs almost more than find logs on my caches because those who do move them along and take the time to log them usually have the most interesting stories to tell!
Yeah there’s a lot of “hoping” involved in releasing a geocoin. However, I “keep it real”. I didn’t have to read this thread to know that they all disappear. People loot caches all the time. Doesn’t matter if it’s a geocoin or some other trinket. Don’t expect much if you release a geocoin. But you can always hope that someone will enjoy the fact that you did.
For me, Geocoins are as much a part of the geocaching experience as ammo cans and a gps are.
The thievery of these coins seems to be much more rampant than I ever thought. Maybe I’m just a bit naive due to the fact that all of the cachers that I have met at events and on the trails turned out to be such wonderful people. I bought a Wisconsin coin two years ago with the intent of releasing it in Germany. It’s mission: to visit all of the countries of my ancestry, and of course to return home. I still plan on releasing it, but I guess I won’t be expecting too much. I hope the European morals are higher than ours are. Generally speaking of course.
Coin disappearance certainly happens. I remember one of my first coins that I placed. It was at a “Sawdust City” cache in Eau Claire. Two days later a cacher went to grab the coin and said it was gone! TWO DAYS! I imagine someone was watching an easy cache to grab coins.
I personally like to place coins and pick them up to move. I do enjoy that and like to see where they travel. Recently, I had picked up a coin in Rhinelander, and after 10 or 11 days the owner contacted me and called me a thief and other stuff. I emailed back stating that I will get his coin back out soon. After a few more days, he posted a note on several of my caches stating that the cache owner was a thief and takes coins that are paid for. I again sent an email, letting him know that I don’t cache “everyday,” and most caches are micros where coins don’t fit into. I also am very careful where I replace coins. If the cache has a history of getting muggled or is in an area where I don’t think is safe, I won’t place the coin there. Apparently this didn’t sink in as he sent me another nasty email. Finally, I virtually dropped the coin and let another cacher take the coin off of my hands. I did warn him of the history of the coin. Maybe I shouldn’t worry about where I place coins but I think personally it may help with the longevity of trackables. (As a side note: The cache where I picked up the coin was muggled about 7 days after I retrieved the coin.)
I would say that half of my placed coins are gone. Some are still moving and it is always fun to watch them travel. Like an earlier poster (Cheeto) stated, it’s nice to hear someone else has enjoyed seeing your coin. A nice note is also considerate. Just my thoughts.
@-cheeto- wrote:
I release them with the hopes that someone will enjoy finding one for the first time. I release them with the hopes that someone will actually follow it’s mission and log that they had fun doing so. Hopefully they will enjoy moving one of mine around. I don’t hope for a coin to move 35,000 miles. I hope for someone to enjoy moving one of these around like I did for the first time. I enjoy reading the “trackables” logs almost more than find logs on my caches because those who do move them along and take the time to log them usually have the most interesting stories to tell!
For me, Geocoins are as much a part of the geocaching experience as ammo cans and a gps are.
Excatly how I feel only said way better then what I have written.
We’ve never purchased any coins to release into the wild for fear they would go missing. And the one time we did release a group of travel bugs the whole cache went missing afterwards. That is another story.
However, I don’t think coins get lost only from thievery. Some of it is because of mixing trackables in with tradeables. I’m sure we all have seen log where people talk about trading for a geo coin. In fact,during our first few outings geocaching, we were on track to find an ammo can. As we got close to ground zero, we saw 2 couples and 4 kids coming down the trail from the other direction. Being new to this and being not sure if they were muggles or what the etiquette was if they were cachers, we stopped and hung out a ways back. They continued on and found the cache and opened it up and got the log book out. The 4 adults stood around chatting and signing the log while the kids went through the ammo can and divided up the contents between them. As the parents put the log book back, the one mother reminded the kids to “put your quarters in for your trades”.
We grabbed the cache as the parents and kids with bulging pockets walked away, and sure enough there was a log book and 4 quarters. We found 3 more caches in the park in the same condition. So if there were any travel bugs or coins in those caches, they probably ended up at the bottom of a toy box somewhere.
Also having a mission statement attached doesn’t always help either. All of our travel bugs have a laminated mission card attached to them. Only half the time the movers actually read the card.
When you multiply all the layers of risk associated with coins it amazes me how many stay in circulation..
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