Lemon Fresh Dog

The "Post-digestive" coin. Use your imagination.

There was a thread awhile back on "what makes a geocoin a geocoin?" - it comes up every-so-often. There have also been some threads on the history of coins. These have gotten me thinking. When I first started caching, the concept of a "Signature Item" was (or seemed to be) more popular. The purpose of the Signature item was to basically have something that you could place in select caches to say "it was me that was here and this further proves it!" (the log does too). There were some cool items! Wands, staffs, shot glasses, etc. If nothing else, there was a business card or some such item. To my way of thinking - this is what geocoins started out as. Something unique to a cacher (or caching organization) that was a "calling card" and placed in caches. Now, of course, they have morphed. They are signature items, they are trackables, they are collectables, they are inside jokes, they are trade items, they are.... it goes on and on. The reason I mention it is that I really like the original intent of the geocoins. The personals (even non-trackable - gasp!) In fact, I might even prefer a non-trackable personal traded in person or found in a cache to a more ... um.... "commercial" coin. Even regardless of design. What are your thoughts? The other reason I bring this up is that I am interested in signature items beyond coins and am in the process of "shaking things up" with a plan for this spring around the idea. I'm not "handy" so I can't knit, whittle, or carve a signature item, but I have an idea. In fact, my first signature item is called a "geocoin", but it's not really - it's a "Geo-bone". For some reason it's gotten lumped into the coin world That's cool. What are your favourite signature items? (is the coin forum a place to even post the question?)

I always wanted one of the Cav Scout round ravens, but I doubt our paths will cross. That's probably what makes it so cool! Also - early 2005 makes it one of the early ones.

You know we do! I'll cache the duplicates. Question: Didn't you have a coin waaaaay back? A round one? I have your raven and I have the military coin that you were kind enough to let me have (even though I'm Canadian and obviously haven't served in the US military). As per the "deal" they aren't ever leaving my possession! I did, however, think that you had a coin prior to these. Yes/no?

Jesus!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I just *knew* that one would get a reaction In fact, how about George W. Bush on one side and Jesus himself on the other. We could call it the "Presidential Ressurection" coin. - ouch!

How about a "George W. Bush 2012" coin

hey cool! I remember that trip. I left work in Calgary at 5pm, flew to Vegas and arrived around 9pm, then had to wait until 1am for my delayed flight to Columbus! Arrived just after 7am and had to train all day until 3pm. Hid the coin at lunch, caught a flight to Toronto at 5pm, Toronto to Calgary for 3am and taught the next day! Needless to say - no time for "proper" caching. I also got a LOT of questions from customs haha! "So, sir, you are telling me that in 24 hours you left Canada, went from West to East and now want to re-enter Canada in the east and fly west.... can you come with me please" At least I didn't take the contract in the Middle East the month before -- THAT would have looked great on the passport. PM me - I have to send you another travel coin for a Columbus cache!

Toilet Paper Geocoin.

The Poison Plant geocoin. Each one has a poisonous plant on it - feel the itch!

I'd be reeeeeal happy to help you "go through" your coins If you started Nov 2005 - then you would have some of the earlier coins. The real "explosion" of coins happened around June/July of the summer of 2005 - with things getting super-heated in early 2006 (to the best of my recollection anyhow) If you had any older coins prior to Nov 2005 - then you might have some very cool ones indeed. Opps - of course, there are many modern cool coins too. You just might have some "rare" early coins.

Okay! This is the week they go out. I'll have them ready to roll the second they arrive at my doorstep which will be this week or very early next week - exciting! There are a couple of my "sellers" left and I haven't killed the link yet. I'll have to delete the link on Wednesday or Thursday so that I can print out all the shipping labels easily. Here is the link Then, it's stuff the coins into envelopes and send that pile of bones out. There's already one activated, but the icon shows the "cent" symbol. I'll keep looking for new icon to pop-up (the little dog bone).

I use STOLEN if the coin has gone missing without a log. It does get folks attention - and I have actually had some "mysteriously" re-appear. I only go through this exercise every 6 months or so. My thought is that if it hasn't moved in 6 months and if someone has held onto it for 6 months - it's STOLEN. MISSING seems too "nice" of a word. If the cache is muggled, I suppose it's missing or lost.....

It seems odd that they wouldn't respond - if they went through the effort to actually add the coin to their inventory -they probably have/had every intention to move it along. Otherwise they would have just taken it and not logged it. It's also possible that they have changed their e-mail address and the notes you are sending are bouncing. If it has been a couple of months - rename the coin to "STOLEN". Then, everytime they log into their profile, the word "STOLEN" will appear in their inventory list.

The connection to other folks that "get" this hobby. I enjoy coins from places I have been, places I want to go, and especially from people I meet or that I feel I *know* from the forums and such. Most of my real-world friends and family don't really understand caching and aren't all that interested in my hobbies (I collect comics, stamps, and little die-cast planes). Here - folks do understand the hobby and having a little memento that I can leave behind or give to someone is fun! So it's like a secret world of adventure! My "calling cards" are the coins I place in caches. I've also bought and received them as well - so it's fun to look back and remember the person/event/place that they commemorate. (I'm a big fan of personal coins - especially from face-to-face and forum folks).

wow. normally I'm pretty jaded - but this one's a beauty.

Blame Canada. I used to visit Anacortes to see the rock shows in Seattle. I didn't steal your coins though - it was in the 80's Anyhow - to answer your question - it boils down to: 1) Don't release it if you can't stand to lose it 2) Drill it, deface it, make it less appealing 3) Tag it, bag it, make sure everyone knows it's supposed to move 4) PM cache it, puzzle cache it, place it in remote caches only 5) If it hasn't moved or been taken and note logged- change it's name to "STOLEN BY A LOW-LIFE: Coin #5432" - that prevents it from being "proudly" displayed or sold. These threads all lead to the above few conclusions. Caches are in public places and listed on a freely accessible public website. 1 thief can ruin the efforts of dozens of people that move items along. Coins are very desirable to thieves.

Sitting in the back of the limo with empty bottles around you and your tie missing... wondering when your next song will hit the charts, when your next book will become a bestseller and when the fans will come back.... thinking about the fact that you've been driving around for 2 years straight .. only stopping for fuel, booze, and caches as you drive the highways of North America looking for your lost soul.... Or at an amusement park on your iPhone.

Forum go *BURP*

It may be the Kilted Cachers 1st coin 1st he activated. In the same way that folks have their "old #1" (the first coin they ever owned, the first one they personally activated). It's certainly not the first trackable personal coin on Geocaching.com - that would be Moun10Bike. It's *possibly* the first PC-trackable when the codes were made available outside of organizations. It's not the first trackable personal coin though. Here's how things used to work. If you wanted trackable coins - you couldn't even get the numbers from the coin makers! You had to do the following: 1) Design coin 2) Show design to Groundspeak and get it approved 3) Pay Groundspeak for a spreadsheet of tracking numbers 4) Send the spreadsheet to the coin maker and have the coins minted with the numbers on them 5) Receive the coins, match EACH number to EACH tracking code (they were ALL different!!) aaaaaaa! It hurts to remember.....it hurts!!!!! Kilted Cacher may have been the first to do this for his personal. I know some organizations that did this during the late summer of 2005, his coin was Sept/Oct 2005, the Red-Handed I did was Oct/Nov 2005 (which was neither a personal or an organization - it was a "community" coin). In fact, it wasn't until summer of 2005 that Groundspeak would sell units of tracking numbers less than 1000 and to individuals. Prior to that - you HAD to by tracking in 1000+ and you HAD to be an organization. A fact that some times caused.....er.... discussions Good times....good times.....

Groundspeak did sell the tracking number, so they would have to have the activation code as well.... yipes. I guess that's why they charge $1.50 per tracking number - to pay for the activation code call center they need to open up!

Okay! More research has been done. (I came home from work and looked at my coins). So. The original question - is there a directory of trackable coins? - no. However. The link to the above is a comprehensive list of all GC.com trackable coins. The only ones that are hard to find are those that are GC.com trackable without custom icons. These all fall into the "Personal Coin" listing and are prefixed by "PC" in the number. We then have: Non-Trackable. Trackable outside GC.com Trackable on GC.com with the "PC" prefix and icon Trackable on CG.com with a custom icon Finding a list of all coins is easiest in the reverse order. Trackable on GC.com with custom icon - link was provided above - complete Trackable on GC.com "PC" coins. I *thought* that this would be not too hard to do. I was wrong. Although the link provided shows 21-22 of these, the fact is there are MANY more. The lists I provided above are the earlier ones (to my knowledge), but I have also found many more in my collection with "PC" prefixes. My collection is mostly pre-2006 coins - so early material only, but there are still more than 21 "PC" coins in it. So they are obviously "Blocks" of numbers across several coins. Trackable outside of GC.com - very hard to find any lists/references Non-trackable. The hardest to get a list of as there are some coins folks done even announce to the public. Also, this is where most of the earliest coins fit - because tracking wasn't available. Hope all the above helps.

UK Question - I'm not sure which coin was the first to make the trip over, but I do remember the UK coin being a very early one. We were able to get custom engraving on the UK coin - so mine says "Lemon Fresh Dog" on it. This seems to be the first coin *minted* for the UK caching world. First one over? Not sure. On the Kilted Cacher question. His coin does not have a custom icon - so it's not the first personal with a custom icon. It's also not the first trackable personal coin. So that answers the original post

Columbia darthi KSWader Isle of Man Manituela neilsenc native coin Now.... before we *think* we have a list. The ones following my initial post would all need verification. Also! It became a "practice" for coin-makers to buy the required tracking numbers and then divide them up amongst several projects. So. It *is* possible the Groundspeak only has ONE "Personal Coin" listing for .... let's say Nielsenc, but the numbers went over the Personal, Thanksgiving, and Christmas coins.... I don't know. Also. I don't own all these coins (about 60% only). So I gathered this info from different sources. I always name my coin the .... name of the coin. Some don't, so you never know. Eg. Idaho and "Beentherefoundit" are the same coin. Any others?

Some more: (I need someone to check these though) Nielsenc Christmas BackBrakeBilly Cachehunters Quebec That would put us at "lucky 13" Only 7 or 8 more to go and we know all the "PC" coins!

Add. DMFlyer 2005 Thanksgiving Idaho These also track as "Personal Coin"