CedarPointFreak

One thing you can do is make your TB hotel a Letterbox hybrid type, so it stands out on the map with a different icon... just remember to include a rubber stamp and a good quality logbook if you do...

unfortunately, not much.... Even though you still "own" the travel bug... there is nothing stopping anyone from doing what they will with it once it is in their possession. I would recommend a kind email or two asking them to move it along, but if they don't, there's not much you can do. Good luck, and keep positive!

I may be inviting the wrath of those that do not appreciate the "visited" logs... But let me offer an explanation of how I take care of TB's... I use an iPhone app called geosphere while out and about. This app allows me to make field notes, which are uploaded to the site, and when i get home I take the time to log all the finds, and in the process make interesting notes about the caches I visited, or the travel bugs that I picked up and dropped off in various locations. I use the button at the bottom of the page that allows me to log them all as "visited" I really enjoy taking good care of travel bugs, and chronicling their journey while they are in my possession. I always log all the travel bugs in my possession at the time as "visited" into each cache that I find. Many of which are not appropriate for travel bugs, such as micros, or power trails etc... I always try to leave travel bugs in locations that i feel they will be safe for the duration, and have the least chance of being muggled. I keep them in my cache bag, which actually goes with me to each cache. So if I happen to have a few busy days of hitting alot of LPC's or guardrails etc... the travel bugs may very well have a chance to visit many, many caches before they get dropped into a cache. I have picked up a few travel bugs that were in a race, that had a specific tag on them, and on their webpage, requesting that they not be dipped... So I did not. I have in fact had several cachers thank me for dipping the travel bugs into the caches i went to, so their travel bug racked up more mileage, and they also could log in online and see that the travel bug was still in play. I have never got an email from any TB owner requesting that I do not dip their bugs, but if they did, I would happily not do so. So I guess it is a personal preference if the TB owner wants it dipped or not... If you do not, i would suggest tagging your TB's page with a note saying so, and although it will not prohibit anyone from doing so, they can make their own decision... I suppose a suggestion that could be made is to give the TB owner the ability to set an option to disallow/disable visits (dipping). A simple checkbox in the TB's setup page, just like the ckeckbox that is already there, allowing/disallowing the TB's to be collected.

I use the regular buttons, which are made of chromed steel, which can rust over time like any other button. I do use a colored paper insert, and the printing is done by a laser printer, so there is no problems with the ink running if it gets wet or humid. I have for a long time attached one of my signature item buttons to other trackables I move/discover, as a "souvenir", made in the same way I am making the trackable buttons. I have come across many of these later down the road already, and they seem to be holding up fairly well. minor rusting, but still in good shape. I do make sure all of the trackables I re-release back into the wild are in fresh ziplock back to keep everything as dry as possible, and all the pieces together if the attachments were to come apart. I have seen other buttons that were printed with inkjet printing that very quickly became ruined, with the ink that ran, and smeared into an unreadable blur... And because laser printers use powdered plastic, that gets attached to the paper by melting and bonding on the surface of the paper, it will never run or bleed.

Got mine a couple weeks ago. Just love it! A "jewel" in my collection!

Glad to hear a happy story about a long lost bug!

I use my iPhone, and yes, the battery is drained pretty quickly, but to help with that, I have a car charger that I plug into when in the van between caches. Although if you're out on walking trails all day, you could run pretty close to dead on the phone if you don't close the app and keep it in your pocket most of the time between caches.

It would be nice to be able to toggle the "other" caches on/off that are not in the PQ... then it's user's choice if they want to see JUST the items in the PQ, or see ALL the items with the items int he PQ HIGHLIGHED or MARKED SEPARATELY as they were previously.

Awesome... Hope this gets implemented!

Awesome... That's even better. Now how do we get them to implement it?

To answer the questions that have come up... All I am really offering is to create a free copy tag for anyone who is interested. It is still their Travel bug, I am not asking for it to be adopted to me or anything. I would just make up the copy tag, attach a traveler to it, take a couple of pictures, and release it. The part about the original showing up again... well, it's always possible when you release a copy tag that the original somehow makes it back into circulation... IF that were to happen, the Owner of the TB could email the next person who grabs the COPY, and have them remove it form circulation. This can be done for either Travel bugs or Geocoins that have been lost out in the wild...

The idea behind the separate log type is that it could be set up to alert not just the TB owner, but the Cache owner where the TB resides, and possibly allow reviewers to check on them too perhaps... Maybe even allow for the TB's to be filtered out when running PQ's... Perhaps it could add an attribute to the TB, until it gets logged again, or removed form the cache... Just kickin' around some concepts...

Although I never considered emailing reviewers, figured they ahve enough to worry about, but I suppose If i wnated to be pro-active, if neither the CO nor the TBO marked it, that would not be a bad idea... Although I would support a system that allowed finders to mark them missing... perhaps adding a new type of log option to TB's, similar to the cache log option of "Needs Maintenance" there could be a "Needs Marked as missing" log type, which could automatically alert the CO & TB owner with an email...

I have not kept track of how many times I have emailed someone about a lost TB/coin, but I will always make a note on the cache page, and the TB page at least, and time permitting emailing the cache owner and the TB owner.

Greetings fellow geocachers! Do you have a Trackable that has been lost? I have started a new FREE service to get it traveling again! I call it the Lost Trackable Recycling Program. As long as you are sure that your trackable is lost, and it has not been logged in over a year, you can email me the information about your trackable, along with it's tracking number, and I will make up a button like the one in the picture to get it back on the trail again. What I will do is attach the button to something I have around, such as a hotwheels car, McToy, small stuffed animal, rubber ducky, or something else... I have plenty of candidates for travelers. Let me know what kind of preference you have, or let me know if you want me to surprise you. You can either leave the TB's Page the same, with whatever goal it originally had, or you can change it's goal to something new! Let me know if you plan on changing the goal, because I will also print out, laminate, and attach a goal sheet to the button too. I will then take a picture of it, and post the picture to the TB's page, so everyone knows what the new one looks like. (I will blur out the tracking number in the picture, so nobody armchair logs it) You can also either change the default picture of your Trackable, or leave it as a memorial to the original. I will then release it back out into the wild here in middle Tennessee to continue on it's journey. If you are lucky enough to have your original found later, you can contact whoever has this copy, and have them remove it from circulation. P.S. I am just one guy, and have many other obligations in life... I will take requests for this service on a first-come first-served basis. I will try to do as many of these as I possibly can, but please don't feel offended if I don't get to yours right away. I also will check on each one to make sure that it has been at least a year since it has been lost, and if your has been lost for less than that amount of time, I will put it on a watch list, and if it is still missing when the one-year mark hits, I will let you know, and release one then.

You understand, of course, that a cache name (not the GC code, the Cache Name) is not unique? For example, as of today there are 952 caches that are either named "End of the Road" or have "End of the Road" as part of their name. GC Codes, on the other hand, are unique, and can be used to find duplicate logs. --Larry On the other hand if the person does not have a premium membership (like my wife's account) you cannot run a PQ... and this option works, but you still have to do a little work once you narrow it down to a short list of either duplicate logs, or caches with the same name that you happened to log both... but the output there also has a date, so if your duplicate logs are on the same day, that will be an indicator too.

yep, that's what i did on my wife's account... she does not have a premium membership, so PQ was not an option... and there were a couple caches with duplicate names, but just knowing which ones to go and look at narrowed it down enough to find the duplicates...

Awwww. We used to have a hedgehog named Luigi. I am not necessarily interested in an entire lot of them, but maybe one or two, please let me know when they become available.

Thank you for the comparison, as I am in the same boat, and looking to see which editor I am going to try first, I think I am leaning toward the urwigo first.

Well, I have an iPhone, and the Wherigo player for it works just great for the one cache I tried out near home at: "Bell Buckle is Wherigo for GeoWoodstock VII" GC1RGTZ. This has inspired me to create a few of my own, as there are only 8 in TN. I have signed up for the urwigo website, and I'm sure I'll have more than a few questions, but I've done some computer programming, so this shouldn't be too hard, just a matter of learning the interface, and how the functions work.

Where do we go to order, and how much?

I appreciate all the feedback, this helps allot, however, back to the question I asked to start this thread off... Considering that these are TRACKABLE buttons how much would you think is a fair price for just one? Remember these factors when considering a "fair price": * Each code costs $1.50 from Groundspeak * My cost for button supplies is about $0.50 per button * Custom Icon is a one-time $150.00 fee (all the buttons would have the same custom icon, and would just be called "Trackable Button") * I will be taking the time to allow customizations of username/team name on the buttons So two different prices would apply: One price is if someone wanted a single button or two, and another discounted price if they ordered a minimum of 10 of the same button, with the same customizations. Ideally I would like to sell them at a lower cost than a traditional geocoin, but perhaps the same, or a bit more than your standard travel bug or tag... I would like to include shipping in the price, to simplify the ordering process on my site also, so consider that too... So what would you consider fair?... $3.00, $4.00, $5.00, $6.00, $7.00 ?????? How much for just one? How much for 10? How much for 50? How much for 100?

I am already kicking around some ideas for Designs just for that purpose, although because the artwork for the origianl coins is likely copyright protected, I will probably come up with a couple of nice designs showing respect for a fallen coin/bug... The couple Ideas I am fleshing out for those will be a "R.I.P." with some image of a gravestone etc... and the other Idea I was considering was an image of a Phoenix, with the number of the old coin between the outstretched wings... But also, because you can customize the buttons I am offering, you could pretty much put your old number on any of the designs i will have, unless I have a special limited run of a specific design or something... If someone wants their own design made up, that will be available too... anything is possible, it's just me doing this, not some big company.

You also need to consider that the list of travel bugs for that cache also include ones that were just "dipped" using the Visited option, so that number does not reflect very well at all the percentage that have actually gone missing directly from that cache, but the percentage that have gone missing that have so much as even been in the backpack of the person who signed the log, and then marked all the bugs in his/her inventory as "visited".

I actually use both the Groundspeak app and the geosphere app... With the Groundspeak app, you can log the caches live, and drop off your bugs when you do so. You can also go to the trackable tab on the bottom right, and grab/retrieve them into your inventory. Geosphere does not submit live logs in real time, you only make "Field Notes" that you then upload to geocaching, and then later, when you are back at you computer, can take the time to submit your logs one at a time, adjusting and tweaking your logs as you go on the PC... When it comes to travel bugs, geosphere does not log them for you... what I do is type myself a note in the field note as to which bug i picked up or dropped of at each cache, and then as I log each one, I take the time to log the travel bugs IN/OUT of the cache... putting a TB in a cache this way is done when you submit the log for the cache, and the "retrieve" from a cache is done by going to the TB's page and making the log there. I also like to cut-n-paste the actual name of the travel bug from the site into my logs for that cache so a double record is kept,a nd anyone trying to track down the status of a certain bug has it that much easier... I will also make a note in the log if there are bugs that are supposed to be there, but were not found upon my visit.... and then I make a similar note on the bug's page letting the bug owner know know the same, suggesting to both parties that they mark the bug as missing, so it no longer shows up in that cache's inventory. Sorry for the long explanation, hope it helps.