CKayaks

The 2004 and 2005 CKayak coins were made in the U.S. (Bex Engraving & Mint, www.bexengraving.com). The 2006 coin was made by Oakcoins which I believe uses a China mint. Cost on the 2004/05 coins was about $2.50 each. Dies were $260 each (need 2.) Total around $1800 for 500. The 2006 coins were about $200 less. Can't say I see much difference in quality between the versions. Now, I do not use enamel or any fancy coatings, just pressed metal. I have seen some shoddy paint/enamel/coatings on other coins.

Just some rough numbers off the top of my head... 1) Have somewhere around 200 coins circulating. (Plus another several hundred of my personal coins that are not trackable.) 2) Less than a dozen TB's. 3) The loss rate on the TB's is actually much higher than the trackable coins. I think only four or five are still active. Not counting ones where the caches were washed out to sea (seriously!), I have only had about ten of the coins go missing so far. That said, I have drilled nearly every one of the coins that I have released and attached a tag with its mission.

I got mine in the mail today! Nice!

Just visited Athens and then kayaked the Dodecanese Islands in September. Lovely, lovely part of the world! Send me your address and I will get some coins out to you in the next week or so.

I'll send a few personal coins in. 2004, 2005, 2006 versions.

Hummm...me thinks someone looked at the wrong chart. I just sent eight coins to Australia for $4.25 or so. If the package is under one pound, it can go economy post just about anywhere overseas for that rate. This has been proved out on several packages that I have sent overseas the last year or so with no problems to date.

How about this scenario: When somebody posts their "will attend" to an event cache, they also announce that they will be carrying certain coins (or TBs) with them. Now, to discover those coins and get the icon, an attendee would have to seek out that person and actually talk to them to score the icons. I think that is a great way to encourage people to meet-and-mingle some more at events, especially large ones. Hmmmm...I like this. I may have to alter my wording on the travelers.

Happens all the time on mine. I think it is great as it gives the next person a chance to see the coin as well. The one place I do draw the line is event caches. Getting a coin (or TB for that matter) passed around at an event is not the same to me as finds happening out at actual caches. At least for the cache, they had to do actual caching to find it!

I'd be interested in getting a bunch of these, quantity depending on price.

Here is my tally for coins released into the wild. "Travelers" coins are drilled and tagged like a TB. Traveler geocoins out and about: 86 (plus about another 20 I dropped for AZ Casey in OR/CA) Unactivated coins dropped: ~12 Personal geocoins dropped: ~350-400 (combined both versions) I've got at least another hundred travelers to setup for release into the wild.

Email sent. I think I may have a few to send southward.

Mine is pretty straight forward. I "sea" kayak. CK is also my initials, so it is kind of a blend. I had CKayaks on my vanity license plate and just decided to use it for my handle when I started geocaching.

Oh, I HAVE to get one of these! CKayaks

The only down side (if you can call it that) to this method is that it does annoy some of the local coin hunters. I have gotten one or two complaints that it shows up on their searchs. Doesn't stop me from continuing the practise though.

Awesome coin! Order has been placed. Look forward to circulating a bunch of these in California and Oregon caches.

Hello all, Thanks to a kind soul who let me know about this thread. I will not delve into the Everst question, but here is my info on the Bronco Butte hike... * I am a very experienced hiker/climber. Besides the Superstitions, I have hiked, backpacked, and guided groups in the Sierra Nevada's, Grand Canyon, and the coastal mountains of Northern California. Kayaking has consumed my life the last six years or so, but I still routinely get out for 10-16 mile hikes on the weekends at least a couple times a month. I often hike alone, but cautiously keeping within my known limits. * I have spent thousands of hours in the Superstition mountains where Bronco Butte is located, so I knew what I was getting into. I grew up in Apache Jct in the 60's and 70's, right at the Wilderness Area fence line under the Flat Iron. My stepdad was a local horse packer. Countless trips were made on foot and horseback into these mountains for both business and pleasure. * The original hike was supposed to include a local friend of mine. He had to bow out due to health problems. I put out a blind post to those that had done the Butte before. While I was fully prepared to do the hike on my own, I felt it would be better to have someone along just in case. Reading the logs, the people that had attempted the hike before seemed reasonably competent. * Hiking with someone I did not have prior experience with did break one of my cardinal rules. Not knowing the experience and capablities, let alone the personality issues, of another person heading into a major hike is a big no-no. Highpointer and I obviously had different styles and approaches to the hike and this lead to some issues during the climb. Communications and setting expectations were poorly handled on my part. I was much too cavalier in setting this up and executing the hike with Highpointer. Expectations on the start time, what route we were going to take, what to do if we became seperated, etc. were not discussed. These are all basics that should have been covered! * I have to admit that I was a bit frustrated when Highpointer lost contact and kept going ahead without me. My practise on any outing is to set the pace to the slowest member of the group. (Me in this case!) He did, however, make attempts to re-establish communications. We both had the cache as a common goal and knew that we would hooked back up at least at that point. He seemed capable of handling himself and I knew that I was not comfortable continuing up the route he had choosen. It was well off the course that I had determined from my research, what others had provided feedback, and from my read of the immediate terrain. I made a decision for myself that it would be safer to regroup, get back on my original plan, and proceed to the top via the route I had originally planned. By shouting back and forth, we agreed that he would continue up his route, I would continue up mine. While not untirely clear and concise, we did seem to get that point across to each other by the yelling. * No one should read into any of this that Highpointer "abandoned an out of towner on the hike"! While I was from "out of town", having been in Northern California for 27 years now, I still consider this part of the country home. While it would have been better to hike together, we ended up hiking together seperately on the way up and this was fine for both of us given our skills, pace, and personalities. We did stick together on the way back down the moutain. While I would have done things much differently if given a chance to repeat the experience, all in all it was a most pleasant adventure. I will be monitoring for responses, though I just got back from vacation and am catching up on emails and such. It may be a few hours on replies. Peace, Cass "CKayaks"

Hi all! The tracking code is buried in the text on the coin! It took me a while to find it. Hold the coin with the benchmark side facing you. Make sure the triangle in the middle is pointing up with "2006" at the base. The code will be at the 8 o'clock position. CKayaks

Could you make the template for the coin tag available? I am assuming you have a MS Word document or such.

Interesting, I had the same thought a couple weeks ago. About 15 GC's were dropped in southern Nevada, Utah, and Arizona the last couple weeks while I was on a road trip. (FYI...airport security gets real interested in bags of dense materials that are in close proximity of electronic gear. I am on a first name basis with TSA now.) I spent the afernoon today prepping a rather large sack of GC's for dropping. Likely they will have short cache lives here in the SF Bay area, but it has been fun watching some of the ones in the Southwest actually move around a bit. BTW...be sure to give us a heads up when you drop Kealia's Mtn10bike collection.

I wondered why you were out there wandering around the dock area the other day.

I have tried for the last hour to get PayPal to verify my card info so I can order a couple of these coins and they keep telling me it's wrong.....IT'S NOT! Any hints as to what to do? Anybody?? It took me about six tries to get it to take, including a 30 minute break between the fourth and fifth try. Instead of hitting the back arrows, just shut the session down, open a new window and try it fresh each time. Maybe I was just lucky, but that seemed to be the trick anyway.

Definitely interested! A group of cachers from San Jose made the trek to the cache last May as part of a 800+ mile road trip to see this and the APE cache in Washington. (GBA Forum Thread) The coin would be a nice memento of that voyage.

I have a Tracking Time coin heading your way. The world championship coin would be my preference. Peace

Order placed. Great price, so I ordered quite a few to drop in caches out here in the Golden State. As for the LE metal, black gold of course! Well, maybe black nickel is as close as you are going to get to that. CKayaks Former resident of Abilene and Tahoka, TX

Sweet! I will be in Vegas from the 21st to the 27th on business, including a trip to Kingman, AZ and back. I will be looking for these. Guess I will have to make sure I get a rental car with a large trunk! A watch has been placed on the GC's.