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Geocoin Craze


WH

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It seems that every time I read these forums, theres another thread about someone's new personal geocoin. Everyone has them and everyone wants to trade them.

 

When I started caching there were only 3 types of geocoins, Canada, USA and moun10bike. Theres now more than I can count.

 

While some of the designs Ive seen are rather neat, I just feel the whole coin thing has been beaten to death. Which brings me to my next question.

 

I am trying like heck to come up with a unique signature item. I don't want a coin for the reasons stated above but I do want something thats easily identifiable with me.

 

Other than geocoins, what are some other unique signature items that you've either made or seen that easily identifies with its creator?

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Now I feel bad about having a geocoin for a sig item <_<

 

Here is what you need:

 

- Something cheap/easy to mass produce (or at least within your budget)

- Something durable

- Something attractive or at least interesting

- Something unique

- Should have "WH" on it or be easily identified with you.

 

Do you have some distinguishing feature/hobby/interest etc. which well help distinguish you from the crowd?

 

As I said in the other thread, Flask did a sig item that was bicycle gears, but they were expensive.

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You could take a jewelry class and design a small figure similar to your avitar. Make a silicone rubber mold then make several tin castings of it (like a old tin soldier). Kits are available on the net and are fairly easy to create with some simple hand tools. Small, durable and if attractive will be highly sought after. You may have to flood the local market with some samples to see how well it is accepted.

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I recently had some carabiners made at this Place with my Caching name and state on it. I figure that these are usable by anyone who finds one, as well as identifying that it is my sig item. For the last 600 or so finds I've used wooden nickels or dollars, but I'm sure everyone who ever wanted one, could have found one by now. The website I mentioned also does a item similar to Bison Tubes, which I'm considering for my 1000+ sig item. <_<

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I thought of making little figurines of my avatar but then I had a thought. My avatar is a registered trademark of the Nintendo Corporation and I don't have a clue about the legal implications of reproducing the image.

If you are not selling the item for a profit, you can usually use a trademarked item for PERSONAL use. My coin has the penn state logo on it. Now if I were selling the coins and for a profit, I'd probably be sued.

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I like the idea of an item useful to geocachers (like a biner) that is branded with the WH, either in letters or an image.

 

Mine were made as part of another project, but dovetail reasonably nicely with goecaching, so they go in some caches in the backcountry

 

sig.jpg

 

 

I also have a sig coin that I place in caches closer to civilization...

 

coin.jpg

 

 

I also sometimes put either buffalo nickels (no, not the new ones) or 1943 steel pennies in caches.

 

 

nfa-jamie

Edited by NFA
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;) I use 1904 and 1906 indian-head pennies as our signature items. I put them in a small baggie and use a Sharpie to mark on the bag as to what they are. They cost between $1.25 and $1.75 depending on condition. I chose the dates because those years were the years my Father and Mother were born.

P.S. We don't put one in every cache we find. We put them in caches that we consider a little special. The U.S. Mint was the creator. ;)

Edited by Konnarock Kid & Marge
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I was thinking about what the OP said in another thread

Since everyone has jumped on the geocoin bandwagon, theres nothing special about them anymore. It wasn't too long ago when geocoins were special and unique, now the are EVERYWHERE. Everyone is making their own version. Nobody has any creativity to come up with something unique, just another coin to add to an already very large pile.

 

It is like the beanie baby craze. I never understood it. I always thought you seen one beanie baby you seen them all. But that isn't true. Each run of beanies was different and most runs were limited runs. The same is true about geocoins.

 

The unique signature item you're looking for can be small plush toy with WH stitched on it.

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I was thinking about what the OP said in another thread
Since everyone has jumped on the geocoin bandwagon, theres nothing special about them anymore. It wasn't too long ago when geocoins were special and unique, now the are EVERYWHERE. Everyone is making their own version. Nobody has any creativity to come up with something unique, just another coin to add to an already very large pile.

 

It is like the beanie baby craze. I never understood it. I always thought you seen one beanie baby you seen them all. But that isn't true. Each run of beanies was different and most runs were limited runs. The same is true about geocoins.

 

The unique signature item you're looking for can be small plush toy with WH stitched on it.

How about attaching a geocoin to a beanie baby? :huh:

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I thought of making little figurines of my avatar but then I had a thought. My avatar is a registered trademark of the Nintendo Corporation and I don't have a clue about the legal implications of reproducing the image.

If you are not selling the item for a profit, you can usually use a trademarked item for PERSONAL use. My coin has the penn state logo on it. Now if I were selling the coins and for a profit, I'd probably be sued.

Did the company that made the coins for you sell them at a profit? :huh:

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I thought of making little figurines of my avatar but then I had a thought. My avatar is a registered trademark of the Nintendo Corporation and I don't have a clue about the legal implications of reproducing the image.

If you are not selling the item for a profit, you can usually use a trademarked item for PERSONAL use. My coin has the penn state logo on it. Now if I were selling the coins and for a profit, I'd probably be sued.

Did the company that made the coins for you sell them at a profit? :huh:

I've looked into this before when I was looking at a poker chip. They had no problem using a trademarked cartoon for graphic on a personal signature item. They had a big problem if I was going to do something commercial and they did spend some time to verify the use before they gave it the green light. I'm not sure how the law reads but that was the practical application.

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I thought of making little figurines of my avatar but then I had a thought. My avatar is a registered trademark of the Nintendo Corporation and I don't have a clue about the legal implications of reproducing the image.

You should be fine as long as you don't start selling them. Hard to press a copyright violation when no money changed hands.

 

edit: oops, I see someone already beat me to this point.

Edited by treedweller
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Gee I've been accumuating pencils without really trying, all my life. Everywhere I turn there are desk drawers, odd pots, mugs, etc. with pencils standing in them. One of the best things for me about being a geocacher is that I have somewhere to use up these pencils. It hurts me to have to cut one up to fit in a micro. I'd like a source of extra-long micros so I can get rid of a whole one in one go. I'm finally making inroads into them, but it's slow work as I like to provide a background story for every cache I put out, and that takes time.

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Our current sig item is a 'coin' made from Crayola modeling compound. It's kind of rubbery, even when it sets up. They wind up with the feel of a firm sponge. The compound comes in colors and I take a fine point sharpie and write our cache names, city, state, year, and draw a horseshoe on one side (we raise horses).

 

I have also bought the wooden stars from WalMart and painted and decorated them. Our farm name is "Under a Shooting Star", so it kind of fit. I did three batches of those and traded them all for wooden nickels!

 

Other sig items I have seen:

 

Crystal Sound leaves a quartz crystal

Mr. Bloodhound leaves red plastic fireman

Appalachian Lizards leave lizards

OU8ALIZZARD leaves lizards with cache name written on the belly

We've found lots of calling cards, some laminated, and several wooden nickels

 

I have a whole collection of lizards. My husband has decorated his firetruck collection with firemen! Love sig items. We leave an Ohio quarter if we are out of state (OK, so we've only ever cached in Ohio and Nevada, but we're prepared! :anitongue: )

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I thought of making little figurines of my avatar but then I had a thought. My avatar is a registered trademark of the Nintendo Corporation and I don't have a clue about the legal implications of reproducing the image.

If you are not selling the item for a profit, you can usually use a trademarked item for PERSONAL use. My coin has the penn state logo on it. Now if I were selling the coins and for a profit, I'd probably be sued.

Did the company that made the coins for you sell them at a profit? :anitongue:

You'd have to ask them :unsure:

 

I did notice that only the ''back" of my coin is featured on their brochure and my coin is not on their website because it IS a trademarked item. Again, personal use is usually fair game. So I don't think I'll be receiving any cease and desist letters any time soon.

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on the subject of sig items, one thing I've wondered about... are the sig items left for the cache owner as a "thank you" of sorts? Or are they regarded as a trade item?

 

The thank you idea makes the most sense to me so I always leave them in the cache when I come across them.

Sig items are just a way of saying, "so and so was here", and some people like to collect them. They don't need to be traded. Also, people will give them to other cachers when they meet them in person, and you can trade sig items at that time.

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