xipotec

Well , I was about to post a similar thread so I'll add to this one. I cache with a backpack , its got many pockets amd zipper to play with and its known as " The Cache Bag" Here's what I carry so far ( most carry items are from experiences) 1. Ink stamp 2. Pens and pencils 3. Swag from Oriental trading ( we love leaving swag) 4. Iphone (soon to upgrade to etrex) 5. Ziplocs (CITO) and to replace worn bags in caches) 6. First aid (band aid/ neosporin) 7. Batteries 8. Leather glove for dadgum stickers bushes 9. 10. 11. 12. Ok cachers . What would you put in spaces 9-12

Ok , so you all feel most of ths is laziness, forgetfulness, flightiness, inattention. Distraction, and sloppiness? Not malice? Ok, guess that describes us pretty well. I personlly like the 'unbalanced' cacher idea alot.

Nevermind Found this. My link

Does anyone have a file/link that has a good explanation of a travel bug that can be attached to the tags to FURTHUR explain what to do with it? I have seen this on a few and its a good idea.

Putting out caches that are planned to be abandoned is littering.

I was wondering. I will be traveling quite a but over the next few months, so I decided to check in on some of the local travel bugs to see if I could help move them. In our area just about all the bugs....(maybe 12 to 15) seem to be missing..... Why are they all gone? Its unlikely they were all taken and not logged, so I can only deduce they were taken on purpose. One cache in particular , located in our local library, under a lock, and hidden in the stacks, had 4 bugs , and they are all gone.... Do people steal the bugs? Why would they? Guidance for me before I send out my newest bugs. Thanks!~ xipo

The law for the United States is that it's illegal to destroy U.S. currency. The penny smasher issue did, in fact, come to trial, because of this. The final verdict was that penny smashers are not illegal, but penny smashing is. Hence, all of the motorized penny smashers had to be removed, because the company that made them would be guilty of smashing pennies. The current line of smashers has a crank, so you are the one doing the illegal act, and the company cannot be held liable. The feds aren't going to be able to catch and prosecute every citizen who smashes a penny, so that's how the business gets away with it. Every time you smash a penny, you are breaking the law, here in the U.S. Way off topic: This sounds like an urban legend. There is no Federal law against destroying US coins. U.S. CODE TITLE 18 CHAPTER 17, SECTION 331 discusses fraudulently altering coins. Since there is no intent to make a penny look like a dollar bill, the machines are legal. They are hand operated for simple economics of construction and placement. I'm not at all sure how a geocaching thread got to this point, it's not spelled geocashing! ROTFL.... Coin smushing is illegal in some countries....not pennies, i dont think any other country gives a darn what we do to our amalgum metal pennies. And its not illegal here so long as the defacement is for a keepsake and not fraud , as stated above.

We love the pennie smasher machines, and collect smashed pennies. The old wheat pennies work best, they are copper and not zinc like the new ones. They do make good trade items. Hard to believe but pennies smasher are illegal in some countries.....Incredible they are in so many places. But the same can be said for caches..... I plan on cleaning our my caches of questionable material....

I guess what I am saying is there are a awful lot of caches in very questionable areas around me, and I find it very hard to believe all those folks got persmission first ,checked a GIS, checked all local laws . etc etc. I know I asked the question of the land manager for our country parks, and he said NO CACHES....to bad because their are already dozens of them in each park! I also asked if it was an "official policy", and they said "No". So once again, I found a person so willing to say "no" without anything to back up what they were saying, just like everything in life!

My first cache was place this week! Troll Bridge http://coord.info/GC3WQKQ I hope this is the beginning of many more! I have 3 more planned already, 1 to be a multi.

Premium member might be more knowledgable but knowledge does not equate to good morals. If only.. I think perhaps harder caches might discourage theft, but its just a thought.

Being new myself i see the fear of putting your hopes (and cash) into a box in the woods and hoping strangers with open access will help move it around without compensation. Sounds like it should never happen when put like that huh??? But it does.... One thing I do think will be bad for the game is the value of particular coins going up because someone decided they are "collectable". One this becomes more common u will have ebayers seaarches caches for coins to resell to other ebayers who have not intention of ever caching, just collecting. I made a promise to myself to spend some money on this hobby in the hopes of seeing some cool coperative human behavior, if not, its only money lost. We have actually just ordered some personalized collectable swag for people to just take. I figure if 1 trackable makes it out of 20 , you should be amazed and thankful! Working on my 20 now, 2 out and on there way!

Oh my , thanks for the laugh! I joined premium to support geocaching. The premium caches were just a bonus. Oh of course i joined for the foum too!

All the pvc i have seen, and its only a couple were obviously used to save money, not to make a good cache. They look nothing like the ones posted here. Unfortunatly , several of the caches i have visited were obviously not thought out because the materials were cheap and the caches were falling apart. One has finally bit the dust due to the continued use of cheap containers. Pvc can be very durable, if its made with skill.

Yes I am seeing a similar problem. If you follow the guidelines to the letter, many spaces are off limits. Yet I find caches in these "restricted" places all the time? What is the definition of right of way? On out tax explorer, may areas are simply not listed at all. No tax records? I think not! So its still a bit of a guessing game as far as I can tell.

If you are actually seeing this, it is likely a localized and temporary phenomenon. From time to time we get people who like to cause trouble or dominate others. Call them geo-bullies if you like. People like this usually don't stay around in the hobby long. Others in the community find ways to make it harder for them to achieve their goals. Others may place more caches, and they may watchlist the bully's caches and report problems via needs archived or need maintenance logs. Bullies usually don't like criticism and the hardly ever like having to expend effort. Most give up either because they aren't having the effect they wanted or they find it too much trouble. New cachers often perceive a few problems that, IMO, are not really there (or at least are not that serious). A area may appear to be saturated with all the good places taken. In reality there are other good placed if you just expand your radius. And you will also find that caches are archived all the time. Watching for spaces to open up means that you may yet be able to place the cache if you are just patient. Newbies often suggest the idea of automatically archiving caches that have lots of DNFs or that have a Needs Maintenance that the owner hasn't cleared. IMO, some newbies get so excited and into the game that they don't realize most other players have a life outside of geocaching. The website says you should take care of maintenance issues in a few weeks. But the truth is that most caches owners take considerably longer. Sometime they need a nudge with a needs archive log. That also makes the reviewer aware, and if the problem isn't correct after some period, the reviewer can archive the cache. Eventually however the problem will be fixed or the cache will be archived. When you've been around a while, you realize that these issues are not that serious. You will seen caches come and go. Some owners will put in a lot of effort to make sure you have a good caching experience, others will place a cache a forget about it. In the end you can imagine whose caches last and whose get archived. Excellent advise, I really was just trying to findout of this sort of thing does happen, didnt mean to imply anything, i was just trying to understand motivation behind some things i saw. Great post thanks!

I do post pictures of my finds , almost always. I find that to be the fun part. Just takes some time ....when i can upload them. Ordered a few stamps today to curb my penless bad habit.

Yeah this is very well stated, THX!

Thx we have it online

not hard to trade up for some things though I guess...

Yup pretty much why i copied it....for clarification. Because I only see a few things not to put in a cache not real rules for SWAG..... Found money the other day on one...which I thought odd too. Just the following. I mean most of that is common sense...My friend said he has found Neo-Nazi type literature in them before.....

I see a bunch or caches placed along the "edge" of private property, like malls shopping centers etc etc. How are people determining private lands from public lands? It there a guide that explains some general property ownership laws/rules? How can you tell who owns the woods behind a shopping center or along a park?

I am wondering about the following rule. II.4 Geocaches do not solicit for any purpose. Cache listings perceived to be posted for religious, political, charitable or social agendas are not permitted. Geocaching is intended to be an enjoyable, family-friendly hobby, not a platform for an agenda. Cache pages cannot require, and should not strongly encourage, the placement of new caches. This is considered an agenda and the listing will not be publishable. We have discovered many religious promotions materials left in caches, called tracts here in the south. Do these break the rules? Or is it OK for people to leave these in a cache so long as the cache does not promote it? Just curious the differences between leaving this or a business card? We have seen both quite a bit.

Ok , I'll ask for all those newbies who won't... Whats a "Sock Puppet" and why would you want to be one? Seems like a smelly occupation.

It looks like you are talking about downtown Charlotte, and yes, it does seem to have a good saturation of caches. The thing is, as soon as you escape downtown it's starting to look pretty empty. One of the reasons to place new caches it to bring people to new places. Downtown Charlotte probably doesn't need any new caches. As far as one cacher dominating the hides. It looks like if that one cacher hadn't done that, there would be no caches to find. Or perhaps no one can/or tries get one approved due to the saturation rule? I live at the edge of a valley surrounded by mountain ranges. Just to west of me at the base of the mountains is a large city park bordered on an even larger state park. There is probably over 25 miles of hiking trails criss-crossing the area. When I started this in '05, there were only a handful of caches in the entire area, despite the fact that Geocaching was was well established and there were probably two dozen geocachers well involved in the area. I started placing caches in the parks which is an area that I grew up and knew well. Over the years, I have continued to place caches there and if you were to join today and have no idea of the history, you could easily conclude that I was hoarding the real estate. So, I guess if you were that new person, you could whine and pout and declare that it's unfair, and try to get a guideline placed that restricts MY hiding abilities. Or, perhaps you could attend a few Geocaching Events, maybe join the local group's message board, get in on a couple of hikes and learn why things are as they are. Then, you could go and hide some unique caches in the unique spots that you know about so that we can share in your discoveries. Certainly seems like the attitude is "I was first, you were not, you lose....." After all, with rules restricting locations you can place, distance to another cache etc etc, it is obvious that many places will be saturated quickly. Its not rocket science. I again question the simple fact that one cacher, having multiple caches in a small area, limits new caches by new people. Its a fact and not really arguable. Ask yourself this. If the hobby really explodes, as I expect it will, what happens ten years from now? The only place the newer people will have to cache will be distant places from population. (Or to wait for a cache to be abandoned.) Most areas in my local, which meet cache guidelines, already have many caches. This is an issues that geocachers will eventually have to face as reality. Ask yourself this, if you were just starting out, and viewed all the caches you have, would you now be discouraged that all the places you knew were taken up by 1 or two cachers? Really there is no need to get upset, I am not upset, I am just new to this and looking at it form a new perspective. As a searcher, its great, I can find caches everywhere, as someone who is trying to place, its difficult.