Fake Geocoins...

October 22, 2005

I think this report of a theft of a geocoin shows that the guy this fellow tried to deal with is dispicable, but I'd like to dig deeper into the more sinister message.

Has anyone actually been victimized by a "fake" geocoin? Do you know of fake Moun10Bike coins (or others) out there?

That's where the artificial market value (I'd call it the "eBay Value") of a coin will make a difference - lowballs will create junky fakes of hard-to-find coins.

Link to the Log Entry

--Marc

October 22, 2005 @ 3:17 PM

N40° 46.565' W073° 58.756'

October 22, 2005

I havn't heard of or seen any fakes. The Moun10bike coin is real or how would Nechton log it and have pictures of it. Since he has had it for six months and many people have logged it while it was in his posession., I believe it is real.

October 22, 2005

Evidently Ppete has been contacting a lot of moun10bike holders asking for trades. Here's a link to the discussion in the GBA forums

Edit:

Original post : Sad to hear someone would rip off a coin sent in good faith.

Current post: What the heck is going on :mad:

Future post: pending results of the inquistion

Edited October 23, 2005 by bullit

October 22, 2005

If Ppete thinks it's a fake, he should just send it back to the person who sent it to him. If he keeps it, it's stealing -- fake or not. I'm putting Ppete on my "do not trade with" list.

Windrose

1.3k · October 22, 2005

Looks like he is in Austria. Wondering if he was going to buy the coin if it was 'real'. Of course, since he sent it to a real mailing address, why not post his mailing address.

4.2k · October 22, 2005

Based on what's been posted here - that sucks.

A few bad apples.....ya know. Hope this doesn't deter others from making trades, etc. Personally I've traded (via mail) for at least 30 or so coins and have only been screwed over by somebody once.

2.8k · October 23, 2005

I am still trying to figure out what we being traded for when sending a M10B V2 coin

9.8k · October 23, 2005

According to Jon: the version of Moun10Bike Geocoin #204 that has been traveling around has turned up to be a fake. It is a photocopy stuck to a washer. I'm right now trying to track down who is responsible

Edited October 23, 2005 by AtlantaGal

October 23, 2005

So Nechton send Ppete a picture of the coin glued to a washer? Hmmm.

Windrose

9.8k · October 23, 2005

Yeah but it's quite possible that Nechton didn't know the coin he found/traded for/was given was a fake. I mean if you never saw the coin in person before, it's quite possible to not know that all Moun10bike coins are not like that.

October 23, 2005

It seems that other than the original logger, Nechton has had the coin for the rest of the time it has been active, although the original owner held onto it for 15 months. Hopefully Nechton didn't pay/trade a fortune for it.

If it was faked before Nechton got it, about a half dozen people have logged a bogus coin.

A photocopy over a washer.... That's pretty funny in a twisted sort of way.

October 23, 2005

I Stand corrected...

Edited October 23, 2005 by -{LoS}-Xile

October 23, 2005

So the next question is -- is coin 205 (the other coin orginally grabbed by thestosh) also a picture pasted to a washer?

Windrose

7.4k · October 23, 2005

So the next question is -- is coin 205 (the other coin orginally grabbed by thestosh) also a picture pasted to a washer?

It wasn't when I sent it to him.

Here is what I know about the history of this coin: thestosh contacted me in February of last year before I had my version 2 coins in hand asking if I would send him some to distribute on the east coast. This was still before the height of the current geocoin craze, so requests weren't hitting my email every hour, and since I was just about to get 200 coins (which I thought should last a long, long time), I sent them. The agreement was that thestosh would distribute them in "caches that make you say 'wow'" (my request), but they did not move for over a year. He had said that it might take some time to find the right spot to place them, so I avoided worrying about it.

I was surprised when Nechton ended up with one of these coins (#204), and I figured that he was a friend of thestosh. I saw no evidence of a trade or other transaction, so at that point I figured that thestosh had simply forgotten the deal. In truth, I decided that I would not get worked up about it. It is, however, one reason that I no longer entertain requests from people to send them coins to distribute in their area/state/country.

Lately I have received several emails from people known to be holding a coin saying that they had been contacted by PPete, who was asking for the coin. PPete also contacted me directly. Some of the people he contacted were annoyed but most were just amused at how the geocoin craze had grown.

Fast-forward to today, when PPete emailed me the following pictures of what he reports being sent by Nechton. Here is the picture of the coin in its case:

The first thing that those who have seen my v.2 coins should recognize is that the coin is too small. The real coin fills the Air-Tite case in which I send it, and this one is surrounded by a white spacer (the case itself looks to be the original size based on the size of the accompanying bag). Note that in this first picture of Nechton seen with the coin on the coin page, it also has the white spacer. This indicates to me that the swap was made by at least the end of June of this year (the date of the log on which that picture is seen).

The coin photographed by PPete is definitely a fake based on this photo:

As any of the hundreds of other recipients of coins can attest, my coins do not look like the above!

Anyway, that is all of the information I have at this point. I have not heard from thestosh yet to get his side of the story and I see that he has not logged in since Thursday. I'm hoping that this is all a misunderstanding, but that is looking unlikely at this point. In any case, I think it is important to avoid accusations until all of the facts are in.

1.9k · October 23, 2005

I wouldn't call this a fake geocoin since its a piece of paper. It is clearly a scam and all but its paper. I have yet to hear of someone minting a coin thats a fake replica of another geocoin.

October 23, 2005

Anyway, that is all of the information I have at this point. I have not heard from thestosh yet to get his side of the story and I see that he has not logged in since Thursday. I'm hoping that this is all a misunderstanding, but that is looking unlikely at this point. In any case, I think it is important to avoid accusations until all of the facts are in.

Excellent, that gives us plenty of time to set up a group buy on tar, feathers, torches and pitchforks. And a rope!

But seriously, this is one of the wackier things I have heard about related to geocaching, and I'll be interested to see how it plays out.

2.8k · October 23, 2005

But seriously, this is one of the wackier things I have heard about related to geocaching, and I'll be interested to see how it plays out.

I thought I'd read in some other threads in this forum that this is a brilliant technique for getting more people to be able to log the coin since it will keep travelling and not be stolen/kept. Some crap about leaving laminated pictures of a coin (not a Moun10Bike coin, until now) in a cache instead of the actual coin.

At least this one looks kinda like a coin

Edited October 23, 2005 by pdxmarathonman

October 23, 2005

So the next question is -- is coin 205 (the other coin orginally grabbed by thestosh) also a picture pasted to a washer?

It wasn't when I sent it to him.

Sorry Jon, I wasn't implying that at all. Just making the observation that thestosh has posession of #205 and people are logging it. And I was just wondering if it is also paper over a washer by now.

Windrose

October 23, 2005

But seriously, this is one of the wackier things I have heard about related to geocaching, and I'll be interested to see how it plays out.

I thought I'd read in some other threads in this forum that this is a brilliant technique for getting more people to be able to log the coin since it will keep travelling and not be stolen/kept. Some crap about leaving laminated pictures of a coin (not a Moun10Bike coin, until now) in a cache instead of the actual coin.

At least this one looks kinda like a coin

<sarcasm off>

Yeah but that was people talking about doing that to their own coins. I've done the same thing to TB tags of my lost travel bugs so that I can send it out again. I have one named Dexter Hampster that has been stolen 3 times. So I get another hamster, put a laminated copy of the tag on it and send it out again.

Windrose

edited for spelling (can't tell my hampster from a hamster ).

Edited October 23, 2005 by Windrose

October 23, 2005

Maybe Necton got wind of PPete basically spamming for a geocoin and said "Here's your geocoin".

October 23, 2005

Well I noticed that the picture Jon was refering to was uploaded to the TB page on 10/1, even though the log that went with it (receiving the coin) was dated 6/26. The day before he mailed it out to ppete? Makes me wonder if Nechton was trying to cover himself by claiming he got it that way from thestosh (not to say he did or didn't -- waiting for further developments). It would be interesting to hear from some of the people who have logged the coin since it's been in Nechton's posession to see if they saw a real coin or a photocopy.

Windrose

edited for punctuation

Edited October 23, 2005 by Windrose

2k · October 23, 2005

Well, the paper looks like a photocopy indeed. So the only thing we can surmise is that at somepoint the "washer weasle" has physical possession of the coin.

Now, the question is: who had the original coin for any period of time and start tracking forward. There are several scenarios that are possible:

1) Person trades fake to another person

2) Person trades original to person, recipient makes fake

3) Person caches original, other person finds and makes fake, fake gets traded

4) Person caches original, other person finds and fakes, caches fake, fake gets found and traded.

and on and on. (add any number of cache hops one wishes)

In this case, the coin went from thestosh to Nechton by hand. Following this, it went from event to event. The picture on the TB page CLEARLY shows the white border on the coin holder as of 6/26/2005 in Asheville. So we can, from this photo and the post by Mount10Bike, see that the coin was faked prior to the photo.

As the coin was "escorted" up to this point. I would like to hear comments from both thestosh and Nechton. Either/Or of these cachers have...."some 'splaining to do!"

Edited October 23, 2005 by Lemon Fresh Dog

October 23, 2005

The picture on the TB page CLEARLY shows the white border on the coin holder as of 6/26/2005 in Asheville.

Yes, but as I said, that picture wasn't uploaded to the TB page until 10/1 (and the pic of "sending it off to Austria" was uploaded to the page on 10/2) makes me wonder when the first pic was taken? on 6/26 when he received it? Or on 9/26 right before he mailed it out?

Windrose

2k · October 23, 2005

I reviewed the log for Mount10Bike 205 for fun as well. It has photos POST 6/26/2005 that show it to be an original.

2k · October 23, 2005

The picture on the TB page CLEARLY shows the white border on the coin holder as of 6/26/2005 in Asheville.

Yes, but as I said, that picture wasn't uploaded to the TB page until 10/1 (and the pic of "sending it off to Austria" was uploaded to the page on 10/2) makes me wonder when the first pic was taken? on 6/26 when he received it? Or on 9/26 right before he mailed it out?

Windrose

Either way -- it was a fake while in his possession.

edit: thestosh moved 205 along as an original as we see from it's photos

Edited October 23, 2005 by Lemon Fresh Dog

October 23, 2005

Exactly. So the only question is -- did he receive it that way or did it become that way after he received it? The evidence is beginning to point toward the second scenario. Would be very interested in hearing from some of the cachers who have logged it while it was in Nechton's posession.

Windrose

2k · October 23, 2005

oops -- I wa editing as you posted. I'd like to see their coin collections

1.4k · October 23, 2005

Maybe Necton got wind of PPete basically spamming for a geocoin and said "Here's your geocoin".

From what I know, Ppete's emails carried a friendly tone, and he didn't send them to all the Ver.2 owners at once, so I'd be hesistant to call it spamming.

Interesting information about the 6/26/2005 photo being posted more than 3 months later. Signs of premeditation isn't a good thing, and crosses the line of this being a "practical joke." :mad:

2k · October 23, 2005

Nechton? Any comments?

October 23, 2005

That is just wrong to conterfit coins. If this happened to me, I will hunt down the person who counterfited me.

October 24, 2005

That is just wrong to conterfit coins. If this happened to me, I will hunt down the person who counterfited me.

Me too, and then he'll go to work for my while I cycle and geocache.

October 26, 2005

Wow, there is never a dull moment on the forums.

As is often the case, things are not as they first seem, and are not nearly as exciting as we would hope. Jon sent me 2 geocoins to place in 5/5 rated caches per my request. I was going to place a couple underwater / scuba-caches and place those coins in them as added incentive. Alas, life caught up to me and I never got them placed. Several people contacted me wanting the coins and even suggested caches that already existed and had 5 or 4-star ratings. Eventually, weighted down by guilt at having not held up my end of the deal, I handed one off to another geocacher who was going to place it in a high star rated cache. There was no trade or other incentive. I simply met him at a local geocache and handed him the coin, end of story. The other coin was taken to an event cache and passed around.

As far as the white ring is concerned, that is a different plastic case than the one mailed to me. The original broke in the mail, so I replaced it with one of my own cases. The case is larger than the original, and thus has a spacer.

What about the mysterious bogus coin? I have a geocoin collection composed entirely of geocoins I have purchased from their creators / distributors. I wanted to add a moun10bike coin to this collection without taking it out of circulation. I made a duplicate coin with a similar weight and feel to put on my shelf with the others. It would never get circulated, so this would have no effect on the sport or anyone for that matter. It was a placeholder on the shelf. Unfortunately, the same circumstances that kept the 5-star caches from getting placed kept the geocoin shelf from getting built. All the coins floated loose amongst several boxes of geocaching stuff. Add time and a house move or two and things get mixed up. I’m still looking for a couple travel bugs and some of my own personal geocoins. This is why I have all but quit picking up travel bugs. I don’t want to be responsible for loosing any more until I can find the others.

I was quite surprised when a friend emailed me with a link to this thread. Holy cow, that was my placeholder coin that I passed off. At first I felt like an idiot for not noticing the difference when I grabbed it out of the box of geocaching stuff, but I guess several other people felt it look pretty good as well. That was the intent. :huh: It was supposed to look good on my shelf. I didn’t foresee my “collection placeholder” ever making it into circulation since someone would have to basically steal it off my wall. I thought that was a great solution to people taking other geocachers’ personal coins out of circulation for their own collection. As far as the location of the original, your guess is as good as mine. It should be somewhere in my possession since it is obviously not in Austria! I’m not sure what I’ll do if I ever find it. Maybe I should mail it back to its original owner as a peace offering.

Anyway, no ill intent or deception was intended. No goods were exchanged. No profit was made. I don’t think the people who logged the coin should go delete their logs or anything. For all intents and purposes, that coin was and should have been the authentic coin #204. It is a replica of it and pretty well looks and feels identical to it if you leave it in the plastic case, which most people do.

Feel free to send you flames and comments my way. I can’t undo it, so all I will offer is the explanation above and an apology for the confusion and any hard feelings that may have developed. :unsure:

EDIT: corected Germany to Austria

Edited October 26, 2005 by thestosh

7.4k · October 26, 2005

Thanks for the explanation, Stosh. Hopefully the real coin shows up at some point.

October 26, 2005

Now this has got me wondering. I have been trying to get all the round coins I have into Air-Tite containers when I receive them. Even the ones I am planning on trading. Should I bother? Do people want the coins in the Air-Tite containers? From being a US coin collector before picking up Geocoins, got in the habit of protecting any coins that I received. If people are just removing the coin from the Air-Tite, I could save myself some money. I do send along any relevant stickers/paperwork with the coins I trade.

Personally I like the way the coins look with the black rings around them.

Any thoughts?

24.7k · October 27, 2005

That must of been a nice photocopy.

2.8k · October 27, 2005

Now this has got me wondering. I have been trying to get all the round coins I have into Air-Tite containers when I receive them. Even the ones I am planning on trading. Should I bother? Do people want the coins in the Air-Tite containers? From being a US coin collector before picking up Geocoins, got in the habit of protecting any coins that I received. If people are just removing the coin from the Air-Tite, I could save myself some money. I do send along any relevant stickers/paperwork with the coins I trade.

Personally I like the way the coins look with the black rings around them.

Any thoughts?

If you have the coins on a shelf, you'll see how hideous those black rings look alongside all the coins without them, and the coins that can breathe free :rolleyes: The only coins that stay in the air-tites are the ones that are prone to tarnish. And the Moun10Bike V1 :blink:

I don't throw them away, but that's just me.

November 4, 2005

If Ppete thinks it's a fake, he should just send it back to the person who sent it to him. If he keeps it, it's stealing -- fake or not. I'm putting Ppete on my "do not trade with" list.

Windrose

I also thank thestosh for his explanation.

When I received an email from Ppete I was taken aback and offended at his accusation that I would pass off a fake. I was also disappointed in how he decided to make accusations without proof or investigation. Sad.

If Ppete would like to make a mends he could send me back the geocoin I sent to him, along with what he promised me in the first place (a German geocoin) and I will make a trip over to Tennessee to meet thestosh and exchange his placeholder coin for a real Moun10Bike coin.

If Ppete does not at least send back the coin that thestosh gave to me, then perhaps he should be on everyone’s "do not trade with" list.

November 4, 2005

But seriously, this is one of the wackier things I have heard about related to geocaching, and I'll be interested to see how it plays out.

I thought I'd read in some other threads in this forum that this is a brilliant technique for getting more people to be able to log the coin since it will keep travelling and not be stolen/kept. Some crap about leaving laminated pictures of a coin (not a Moun10Bike coin, until now) in a cache instead of the actual coin.

At least this one looks kinda like a coin

<sarcasm off>

That "crap" about putting out laminated pictures of coins and logging them as if they were real was something I was doing. That was only to my own coins that I purchased, not anyone else's and the concept was for the benefit of average cachers who would never get to log a coin otherwise. The original idea of geocoins was to find them IN caches and not just log something your buddy hands you between beers, or so I thought.

The idea of not putting real $10 coins in caches for someone else to take home for their collection may seem tacky to some people. Unfortunately not all of us have our own coins with pictures of the FTD delivery guy to put out and we have to improvise.

November 4, 2005

I dropped a Calgary geocoin in a cache today. I paid for it myself when they came out and dropped it without taking anything in trade. I've traded other coins in caches, and dropped others, both travelers and trade coins. I don't have a personal geocoin to leave.

I understand where you're coming from, but I don't agree with it. If you haven't seen a *real* Moun10Bike coin, for example, you shouldn't log it. People can deal with that, I think, much like if they haven't been to a Project APE cache or an Earthcache to get those unique icons, they shouldn't log those either.

November 4, 2005

I dropped a Calgary geocoin in a cache today. I paid for it myself when they came out and dropped it without taking anything in trade. I've traded other coins in caches, and dropped others, both travelers and trade coins. I don't have a personal geocoin to leave.

I understand where you're coming from, but I don't agree with it. If you haven't seen a *real* Moun10Bike coin, for example, you shouldn't log it. People can deal with that, I think, much like if they haven't been to a Project APE cache or an Earthcache to get those unique icons, they shouldn't log those either.

I put out 12 real USA geocoins over the last two years and they just don't circulate. The newer coins that are in limited supply will circulate even less. At least with my method, people log these "simulated" coins they find in real caches. I mean, really, what sort of accomplishment is logging a coin someone hands you at an event, even if it's the real coin? All you have to do is write the number down correctly.

I'm not suggesting that anyone log a Mountainbike coin they've not seen if that's the owner's desire and I'm certainly not suggesting anyone log a cache they've not found. If it were up to me, all credits would actually be EARNED and I don't see that it makes any difference whether a coin is the actual metal or a substitute for it made of paper and plastic. My idea is that someone has to actually FIND it.

Fake Geocoins...

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