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Little Hiawatha

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Posts posted by Little Hiawatha

  1. Little Hiawatha,

     

    I don’t know if you’re still reading this forum, but if you are this note might be helpful.

     

    I have one of your beautiful coins that I picked up from your cache “Hidden in Plain Sight” on 9/10/13. It wasn’t listed in the cache’s inventory so I entered the tracking number to locate its page. I received a message that it had never been activated. I then sent you an email through your profile page sending you the tracking number in case you wanted to activate it to send it on its way. I never received a reply and the coin was never activated. I also noticed in your logs that you had placed a lot of coins in your caches and I wondered if you had meant them all to be random gifts to cachers. That seemed unusual.

     

    Perhaps there was a problem with the way you tried to activate the coins and you forgot to review their pages afterwards. And either your email is incorrect in the database, it’s an old account that you don’t check, or you thought my email was spam. There might have been other conscientious cachers that tried to contact you in the same way about your coins.

     

    Feel free to contact me through GC to get the tracking number again for this coin, activate it, and I’ll send it on its way for you. Or I can return it to one of your caches if you wish.

     

    Time_for_a_break

     

    Dear Time for a break

     

    I know the exact coin you are writing about. It's a nickel finish Year of the Water Snake geocoin. That was the only coin I ever left in a cache unactivated, the only coin I left as a gift. The reason I gave it away was that it was "surplus" from a project for my 6th grade astronomy class. I wanted every snake coin I had activated to belong to a student. Having a lose coin in the mix would have confused things.

     

    In any case please enjoy the coin.

     

    Little Hiawatha :)

  2. A few days ago while geocaching in New York’s Central Park I came across a strange tracker reference # TB5CX0R

     

    The was the first time I’ve ever seen or heard of a tracker that was an advertisement for a product (a novel) and that seemed odd to me. Also rather odd was its travel history, over 27,000 miles in only five weeks.

     

    Does anyone know anything about this? <_<

  3. Geocaching is so new that relatively few people have heard of it. You don’t see people in movies or TV shows geocaching. You don’t read novels about geocachers. But that might all change in the next ten years. The time may come when virtually everyone who happens across a geocoin will understand what he has found.

     

    The person who cleans out the desk of Uncle Frank who just passed away might find a chest of stolen coins. He can’t sell them so he might as well put them back into circulation. The coins I lost this year might turn up 20 years from now. We’ll just have to stick around and see.

     

    "so new" is not exactly appropriate, unless 13 years is "so new". Since the start of geocaching when Selective Availability came online, there are many folks who have heard of, but may not actually go geocaching. We've been approached numerous times by local police when placing AND searching for caches over several years. All but one have been familiar with the 'game' and the one who didn't know of it was satisfied when we could show him the GPS coords and the cache container.

     

    Movies and/or TV? I can recall numerous movies (although I'm bad on names) where GPS coords are involved, some in finding people, some finding treasure or clues to a mystery. Novels? Actually, several of note: First to Find, First to Find Book One in the Caching Out Series, Cached Out- a Cliff Knowles mystery, 101 Devil Caches in paperback, The Joy of Geocaching (health related) ... and that names a few. Not an entire library, but a good start.

     

    Google is your friend >> geocaching

     

    You will find a wealth of history and information about GPS related games and treasure hunts going back many years.

     

    I spent the day walking around with a "Year of the Water Snake" geocoin asking the people I met of they knew what it was. No one got it right.

  4. Sometimes O can actually be a 0 (zero, not the letter), a B could be an 8, an S could be a 5. And there could be more letter/numbers that I can't think of at the moment. Try switching what you may think is a letter for a number (and vice versa).

     

    No, I'm afraid that not the problem. I tried but it didn't work. :(

  5. I found that when I release a coin I drill a hole in it and attach a traveler or sealed instructions on where it is to go. Ruining the value, but keeping the intention of the coin in tact.

     

    Dear Capt. Jon

     

    Can you imagine finding a 1909 s VDB Lincoln penny with a hole drilled through it? I can. That’s why I don’t drill holes through geocoins.

  6. I bought 5 of the gold ingots travel tags from coinsandpins.com. I also bought the California Flag and the 2 Cent travel tags. The California Flag and 2 Cent tags activated without a hitch. However the same can not be said for the gold ingots. I can’t get activation codes on them. Does anyone have any idea of what’s going on? :(

  7. Why on Earth would anyone want to steal Geocoins? Or are they all just too lazy to read the: DO NOT KEEP notes I put along with the coins? It was my first attempt at using any trackable items, and the two out of three that I bought have been.....stolen. Ugh. Probably won't be buying coins again - that's for sure. Any suggestions on how to keep coins going from cache to cache? Or is this just a 'hit or miss' situation?

     

    Personally I’d never steal anything and I’m not a criminal physiologist. However I think I might understand the mindset of the geocoin thief. If all your geocoins have been stolen before logging any miles it’s clear that others are not playing by the rules. It’s clear that the game has been ruined for you.

     

    Well if others don’t play fair why should you? Why be a chump? Why not simply go to all the caches you can and clean them out? Is it really so wrong to steal from those who have stolen from you? There has to be some minimum level of honesty or this just doesn’t work.

  8. Dear Druimmuir

     

    I had a look at the travel history of your Geocoins and for the life of me I can’t figure out what you are complaining about. Your coins pass from hand to hand and from cache to cache. Isn’t that the point? You own a coin and complain that it’s stolen after it traveled a thousand miles. Well so what. My coins are stolen before logging even a single mile. I’ve never, not even once, had anyone take one of my coins from one cache to another. I'd be thrilled if my coins did as well as yours. Sorry mate but I don’t have much sympathy for your plight.

     

    Little Hiawatha

  9. I'm not buying anymore geocoins or trackables, out of the small number I have every one of them has gone missing, one is with a 12 year old in America who's log says "mine now" 2 months ago despite 2 messages stating it's mine and please move it on he's ignored it, others have all gone missing in short spaces of time, i'm afraid they all have personal stories attached to them and have a small sentimental value and I am fed up of people losing them etc :(

     

    Is there anyway the 12 year old can be reported and made to hand the trackable back ?

    I know the feeling. I'm about to give up myself. The thing is I've released not one geocoin but a number of them and so far not even one has been moved to another cache. I don't really care so much about the loss of the coin. It's just that I don't like feeling that I'm being played for a fool. All I want is for a single coin to be moved just once, that's all I ask for, and it will restore my faith in people.

  10. Geocaching is so new that relatively few people have heard of it. You don’t see people in movies or TV shows geocaching. You don’t read novels about geocachers. But that might all change in the next ten years. The time may come when virtually everyone who happens across a geocoin will understand what he has found.

     

    The person who cleans out the desk of Uncle Frank who just passed away might find a chest of stolen coins. He can’t sell them so he might as well put them back into circulation. The coins I lost this year might turn up 20 years from now. We’ll just have to stick around and see.

  11. There are six geocoins that I've released into caches. The Oreo cookie and Pi coin simply disappeared. That was disappointing as I really liked them. A pencil and a pumpkin coin were logged out but haven't been seen since. As for the others I just don't know.

  12. I know that most Geocoins are stolen before they travel very far. In fact I’ve yet to have even one of my geocoins moved to another cache even once. With a zero percent success rate the activity seems pointless. But I still release Geocoins into the world. Why? Because every time I find one that belongs to someone else I always take care to play by the rules and move it to another cache. The point is that no matter what I know that I’m the one who is playing fair even if most people don’t.

     

    Each time a person picks up a trackable it’s a small test of character, a small test of morality. Will the person turn thief or will he be a responsible caretaker of someone else's property. So far I’ve passed the test every time. At the end of the day that’s what really matters and not the total number of finds.

  13. The Geocache itself I bought on eBay and it was beautifully constructed out of a small cider log with a hidden compartment inside and a magnetic lid. It’s a small work of art and blends in nicely in park like settings. Although just large enough to hold a film canister I was able to place a little geocoin shaped like a pencil inside just before going to class. So on hearing that the cache had already been found I changed the rules a bit. I said the student who brought me the pencil geocoin would get the reward.

     

    There was quite a rush of students to find it after school but the same girl who had found it before brought me the pencil tracker. As it turned out almost every student in the class signed the log. I traded the small pencil geocoin for a full sized “Pi” tracker which is a gorgeous coin. It has the Greek letter for “Pi” on one side along with March 14 which is “Pi Day” or “Pie Day”, the day when you are suppose to eat pie. The other side has the number Pi running around the circumference and the equation of how to find the circumference of a circle using Pi. The geocoin provided a spring board for a conversation as many of the kids didn’t know about “Pie Day”.

     

    P.S. Some of the people who logged the find said they were surprised that I didn’t hide the cache about a block away near the statues of Yoda and Indiana Jones or that they found the cache on their way to see Indy and Yoda. What are those two cultural Icons doing in a park in northern California? It seems that some guy named George Lucas lives near by. :lol:

  14. I take it your a teacher??

     

    I’m dyslexic. It’s something I’ve struggled with my entire life. In fact it very nearly destroyed my life. I can’t begin to count the number of times that I’ve suffered insults and put downs both intentional and unintentional. I know that the slights and snide remarks will continue as long as I live.

     

    However there is one thing that continues to puzzle me and perhaps you can help me understand. Why is it considered poor form to make fun of a person in a wheelchair, or someone with cleft lip, but a person with dyslexia is open game? Why is it that there is compassion for one sort of disability but not for another? Do you think I asked to have a learning disability? I can assure you I did not. It has greatly reduced the quality of my life. I’m not being facetious, I’d really like to know.

    :huh:

  15. I have 32 wonderful sixth grade astronomy students. Over the summer I established a Geocache and named it, naturally enough, “6th Grade Astronomy 2013”. Next I bought 32 of “The Year of The Snake” Geocoins, 24 in bronze and 8 in nickel. The 24 bronze coins I activated and named each one for one of the 24 people who have visited the Moon. The 8 nickel coins I named for 8 remarkable space travelers who never went to the Moon.

     

    I then logged all 32 coins as “visited” for the “6th Grade Astronomy 2013” cache. On the first day of class I showed my students a duplicate cache and said, “I hid something just like this a short walk form your school. The first student to find it and sign the logbook gets a reward.” Just as I expected one of the kids asked, “But how are we expected to find it if you don’t tell us where it is?”

     

    “Good question” I replied and I handed each of them one of the Geocoins and said, “The object you are holding contains the clue to find the cache. This is the only instruction you’ll receive.” I’ll admit I was pretty proud of myself. I thought it was a cool project. I wasn’t expecting what happened next. One of the girls razed her hand and and said, “But I’ve already found the cache.” :lol:

     

    Little Hiawatha

  16. I really like the geocoins made by Coins and Pins. There workmanship is just beautiful. But there website has been down for days. Does anyone know why? Are the still in business? I sure hope so.

     

    It works for me.

     

    OK. So what am I doing wrong?

  17. I want my geocoins to move from one cache to another. But when I activate a geocoin I don't understand the collectible/not collectible question.

     

    If I list it as collectable done that mean anyone who finds it can keep it?

     

    If I list it as not collectable does that mean it won't be moved from cache to cache?

     

    Thanks for clearing this up for me.

     

    Little Hiawatha. :)

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