eragonSaphira

It was great having you in our country. It is a bit of a surpise you stepping down, but I'm sure Andy will do a great job of reviewing our caches. As you say, the sport has grown considerably in SA and I agree, the time has come to appoint a local reviewer. Once again, thank you for visiting, it was great having you here and finally meeting the man who woke up at 4am to publish our NOLY caches.

No problem

Hi, Could you perhaps specify which coins you are referring to? The local manufactured coins (eragonSaphira & GRC Mint geocoin) can be acquired by contacting myself (renier@geocoins.co.za) or visiting our website GeoCoins South Africa. I also know that a truly unique South African coin would be the Big 5 geocoin. I am however not sure of if NotBlond still have some of these coins in stock, but you can contact him in order to find out NotBlond.

The weight of the silver coin will be 31.1gram. Hope this helps.

Thank you. Will definately do so in future.

Whoo Hoo... I pre-ordered two on Feb 6. Hope your coins arrive soon. Please drop me a mail when you have received the coins as I would be very interested to know when the first international coins start to arrive. To tell the truth, this is the first coins we have shipped overseas and are currently very nervous about the postal service, delivery, customs and the like . So if you confirm that you have received the coins, it will really set our minds to ease.

Using the dimensions of 3 mm x 38 mm on the website, and a density of 10.5 g/cm3, and assuming the coin is 100% silver (?), I calculate a weight of 35.7 g. I am unclear on whether this coin is made completely of silver or if only the finish is silver. This coin will be completely made from "Fine Silver" which has a silver content of 99.9% silver as apposed to sterling silver with only a 92.5% silver content and the remainder made up of copper. Thus, it is not just a silver finish.

We are waiting currently for a proof coin to be minted, but will have the information regarding the weight shortly. I'll post it as soon as I have the information.

Up to now we have had an absolute fantastic response to the first geocoins minted in South Africa and decided that we will make 25 of these geocoins extra special by minting them in Fine Silver (99.9% pure silver). Sterling silver is silver with a silver content of 92.5% pure silver and the balance is made up of copper. Due to the copper content of Sterling Silver, it tends to Tarnish after just a short while. These coins will NOT be minted from Sterling Silver, but from Fine Silver. Fine Silver is almost 100% pure and contains 99.9% pure silver. Why Silver? With the current rise in the price of Silver, these coins will quickly catch up and surpass the initial investment made to obtain them and be worth more than was initially paid for them in sheer weight of Silver. Should anyone be interested, please have a look at the GeoCoins South Africa website for more information and how these coins may be reserved. The coins will be reserved on a FIRST COME FIRST SERVE basis. NB! The images currently on the GeoCoins South Africa website is that of the brass eragonSaphira & GRC Mint geocoin. We will post an image of the Fine Silver coin as soon as we receive them. The current eragonSaphira & GRC Mint geocoins minted in brass is also available from the site and the first batch of these coins have already been sent to their respective new owners.

Hi guys and girls, Glad to announce that we have received the first batch (and we are very pleased with the end restult [especially it being the first coin minted]) of coins and have started to mail them off to their respective owners We will update the GeoCoins South Africa website with high-res photos probably by this weekend and I will post in this thread as soon as we have done so. Should you be interested in the low-res photos I took, you are welcome to mail me at renier@geocoins.co.za Should you be interested, please visit our site and note that on the menu on the left hand site their is a button (US$ Site) that will take you to section of the website where prices are listed in US Dollar (that way you don't have to work out the exchange rate). Thank you for all your support and how the coin was received thus far.

Yes, these coins will have their own Icon. The icon for the eragonSaphira & GRC Mint Geocoin has been uploaded on Groundspeak: All Geocoins on Groundspeak

Congratulations to GreenJaM, 200 caches and still clocking it up!

Great looking coin, I'm interested

I have to apologise to you. I did not mean to say that you have problems with your credit provider or that anything was wrong with your credit card at all. This is a terrible misunderstanding. The first time I wanted to buy from the www.geocacher.co.za site using Setcom, I had to verify my credit card on Setcom as well. "Setcom is the problem", not you or your credit card or your bank... It is the supposed Setcom security features. If you like I can forward you the mail. The reason I posted the comment was because other customers might experience the same problem as you and me, when trying to use the gateway. I was actually to try and be helpful, but I guess I should have taken the time to write a better post. I am at fault here and I apologise for any inconvenience I have caused.

Setcom seems to be working 100% for a lot of overseas customers. I think cincol should verify his credit card. That was the suggestion that Setcom support gave me when I told them about the problem he was experiencing. I would have loved to rather use Paypal as it is known and loved, but thanks to FICA, it will not be possible, unless I get myself a Swiss bank account.

But their link does take a credit card with no problem. I found it fast and easy. I am finding this to be a big problem for me. if anyone has paid through the site, was there a 'secure' lock icon in the address bar? Unfortuanately due to the very strict FICA (Financial Intelligence Act) act in South Africa, we cannot receive PayPal payments (I'd love to have used PayPal). The Payment gateway we are "forced" to use is called Setcom and is supposed to be very safe and secure. It is much like PayPal, the difference is that it complies with the FICA act set forth by government and our reserve bank. The system works very similar to Paypal, you click to add coins to your basket. The basket is held on the Secure Setcom servers and not on our site. Then you go to a secure Setcom Checkout (you technically leave our site and the setcom payment gateway is then shown in the frame) where you enter your credit card details on the Setcom Gateway, similar to Paypal. We as GeoCoins South Africa NEVER EVER see your credit card details. The checkout is then done on the secure Setcom servers, and when the transaction is successful, setcom redirects back to our website. Should you require more information regarding the Setcom Payment Gateway please check them out at Setcom Secure Payments Should you want to test this, please try the following. Go to our website, add a coin to the basket, it will redirect you to the Secure Setcom server and show you your shopping basket. To the right of the of the total amount (depending on your screen size) you should see the "Secured by (t)thawte click here to veify". You can click on that icon to get the security certificate details for Setcom. Hope this will help

Yes, these coins will have their own Icon.

Thank you. So far everyone's support has been excellent.

Yes, I do. The coins will retail for ZA R55.00 approximating to US$8.00.

The eragonSaphira and Gold Reef City Mint GeoCoin. As South Africans, currently all GeoCoins we have, were made outside our borders. A while back I started to do some research in order to find out if it would be possible to manufacture geocoins within South Africa. After days of research and contacting various coin manufacturers, The Gold Reef City Mint (GRC Mint) got back to us and they sounded very excited about the venture. One thing led to the next and finally our coins went into the production process at the end of January. The coin is made to a South African coin size which is 38mm, and is called the "eragonSaphira and GRC Mint" geocoin. This is the first GeoCoin to be completely manufactured (that we are aware of and excluding the Groundspeak Tracking numbers from the US) within the borders of South Africa by a real mint that also mints legal tender coins. As this is the first geocoin that is manufactured in South Africa, we will use it as an exhibition piece for "GeoCoins South Africa" and the "Gold Reef City Mint". Being the beginning of great things, we would like to keep this coin very special and thus have decided that only 500 of the "eragonSaphira and GRC Mint" geocoins will ever be produced. Should anyone be interested in these coins, you may contact me on renier@geocoins.co.za for more information or should you be interested in pre-orders. Photos of the actual minted coin will be posted shortly.

Just on this, we have planted approximately just under 40 caches for the NOLY event 1 March. Before we set out we did some guidelines for planting a cache and thus we tried to have the cache fall in to at least one of the following categories: 1. It has to be beautiful or scenic or impressive or interesting. 2. It has to be historic or heritage related. 3. It has to be sneaky (so although it might not be 1 or 2, you will have a fun time finding it). So we tried to make all the caches worthwhile and fun to find, but there might be a cache or two that the community might find "And there's a cache here why?". I can think of one specific cache we planted for the NOLY event, a micro at that; the view might not be scenic, it might not be historical (although it will go down in the history books) and it might not even be sneaky, but we planted it to relay important information to the caching community about one of the problems South Africa is currently facing.

My opinion is this; if you are not happy with a cache you placed, remove the cache and archive it. If it is a worthwhile cache, then leave it. Currently we have 4 caches that is not regularly visited (technically the one still needs a FTF, but we couldn't get to it on account of the rains washing the roads away in December and now the NOLY event occupies all our weekends, so we'll fix it the 2nd weekend in March), but these 4 caches is really worth visiting and thus, although they have very little finds on them (far out and in the middle of nowhere), I am more than happy to keep them as well as maintain them because I believe they are worth the time and effort. Mine as well as any cacher going out to find them.

We are still getting to the part where we will be able to mint local SA cacher coins. Currently I do not have the approximate costs for you, but I'll have it soon enough (after we receive the first batch of eragonSaphira and GRC Mint Geocoins). The eragonSaphira and GRC Mint actually uses two different ways of doing the coin. The eragonSaphira side is rimmed 2D die (raised border with sunken text) with high detail imagery like the CrystalFairy GeoCoin, the GRC Mint side of the coin uses the standard 3D coin type Dies, like the Big 5 Geocoin. This way we can gauge costs on various methods of minting, assisting us in creating cost guidelines. I'll update the site as soon as we have these. Now regarding minting local cacher coins, my ideas are the following (not quite sure how naive it is, but I won't know until I give it a bash) Subsidised coins: 1. We sell eragonSaphira geocoins until we have enough capital to mint the SA coin 1. 2. We sell the SA coin 1 until we have enough capital to mint SA coin 2. 3. We sell the SA coin 2 until we have enough capital to mint SA coin 3. SA coin 1 continues to sell and generates extra capital. 4. We sell the SA coin 3 until we have enough capital to mint SA coin 4. SA coin 1 and SA coin 2 continues to sell and generates extra capital. 5. When enough capital is generated from selling the SA coin 1 and SA coin 2 (and maybe SA coin 3), we launch the first subsidy for minting a geocachers coin. (Not sure how we'll decide who to mint first, but we'll figure it out). We'll probably try to subsidise about 50%-60% of the coin (maybe more, depends on sales). For subsidised coins, terms and conditions will apply (like we have the right to sell the coin through our website) 6. Now the profit generated from selling the subsidised coin thourgh our website will be used to first cover the expense of manufacturing the coin(1. the 50%-60% subsidy, 2. the 50%-40% paid by the cacher whose coin it is), this way, it will enable us to subsidise more local cacher coins. Manufacturing costs include creating the dies, the raw materials used to mint one coin. After all these have been paid, the cost price per coin will boil down to the manufacturing costs per coin. 7. After the initial manufacturing costs of the local cacher coin has been completely recovered, coins will sell on a royalty basis. Thus from the profit generated from the coin we'll pay royalties to the owner of the coin (probably once in every two months). 8. Subsidies will probably only be available to South African cachers at this stage. 9. Remember that this is still new and there are lots of detail I still have to figure out, so the above ideas and guidelines may change without notice, however the latest information will always be on the GeoCoins South Africa site. The unsubsidised method is easier to explain: 1. We calculate the cost of manufacturing the coin and hand it to the cacher. 2. The cacher will consider this and if he likes to proceed, he will be responsible for paying the total cost. 3. We mint the coin and hand it over to the cacher. I know you would have liked to know more about cost, but this is as much info as I can give at the moment. Hope it helps.

Hi cincol, Yes, we have started to manufacture South African GeoCoins. We are still in the early stages, but our first coin went into production. This coin is more of an exhibition piece for Gold Reef City Mint, which is our partner and who mints the actual coins, and ourselves as the adventurists starting the initiative. The coin is currently up for pre-order on the GeoCoins South Africa site, and we hope to have the first coins within the next 2 - 3 weeks. The Neighbour of Leap Year's Day Bash will be the official launch for the coin. We're also planning to keep this coin rather special by only minting 500 of these coins in total. If the coin is well received, we plan to do something special with the last 20 or so coins minted, but for now, that is a surprise. The next coin will have a complete South African feel to it. My current idea regarding the back side of the coin is currently on the GeoCoins South Africa website, but I still need to speak to geocacher_coza, as I rather like what he uses on his site for the SA Geocaching logo. Maybe we'll implement something around that. The idea for the front side is currently the big five but we haven't finalised that yet, as South African has some other truly unique things. The main idea regarding the South Africa GeoCoin venture is to enable (help with the process and subsidise) local South African cachers to mint their own coins. We are not there yet, but the eragonSaphira and GRC Mint geocoin is the start. Hope this information is useful.

Great!! We don't have any plans yet and have diarised the two days. Looking forward to it