Ftf Prize

[+daytribe]

I've seen a couple of new caches recently that have had something a bit special in as a prize for the FTF (sadly it wasn't me).

 

Is this a relatively new idea, accepted practice or generally up to the individual that sets the cache.

 

I have read that $1000 prizes have been left in the past in some caches in the US.

 

Firstly, what do you think?

 

Secondly, what's the best prize/trade item you found?

 

Mike.

Edited November 29, 2005 by daytribe

[+daytribe]

I meant to post this in the United Kingdom forum but what the hay.

[+Ed_S]

Best FTF Prize I've found so far is an LED light with elastic straps so you can wear it on your head, freeing up your hands for sticking them in dark places! The cache was placed by Team Rattlebars, a local caching family who likes to cache at night, "Nightcrawling" they call it.

[+lpyankeefan]

A friend of mine got FTF on a cache near here. FTF prize was two round trip airline tickets on Independence Air.

 

Cache #GCKD01 One Eye Willy's Rich Stuff

[CharlzO]

One near me had a 2.3" RCA LCD pocket TV as a FTF prize..

 

(I know, it's my cache lol)

 

But, I think sometimes, people will go after a FTF prize simply because of it, instead of for the joy of caching. I know there are some people out there who just LIVE for a FTF. Don't get me wrong, I always look to see if there are new ones near me, but a lot of it, is just so I can use an excuse to get out, and enjoy life.

[salmoned]

My standard FTF prize is a one-ounce silver eagle/maple leaf. For my latest cache, since it's a 5/5, the prize is 1/10 oz maple leaf. On difficult caches, proving they CAN be found is a valuable service.

 

The best FTF prize I've claimed is a nicely turned bowl, made of spawled Norfolk pine. I estimate it's value at over $200 (made/signed by the hider).

Edited November 30, 2005 by edchen

[+bikinibottomfeeders]

the best thing i found wasn't really a ftf prize but was a $5.00 gift card for pizza hut in a cache that was a nice hike to get to. It really came in handy after working up a large appetite.

[+kent1915]

"Bobcatw98 Throws in the Towel" netted me a crisp new $20.00. That is my best FTF, but then, I only have 5 so here is hoping for more!

[+NorthWes]

Somehow Santa got a 2005 Christmas Cache coin into Skijor!as a FTF prize... what an awesome scramble that produced out in the woods on the day after Christmas! That Santa - he left moose tracks leading right up to the cache hide...

[+Medic005]

In one of my caches, the FTF got 2 Motorola FRS Radios and in another a FTF got a $25.00 Gift Card to a Local store.

[+Dreamin'Eagle]

I personally have only got one FTF and there wasn't a "prize" for it. However for one of my own caches I left a small lego set as a FTF prize and a multi that I am currently working on is going to have a 45 minute prepaid phone card as a FTF prize. One of our locals got a PDA for a FTF prize. So I guess it's eally up to the hider as to what they want to do.

[+KoosKoos]

On 2 different FTFs I received Mikasa Crystal vases...they were very nice!

[+Thrak]

I just put out a series this Christmas where I left a Kilted Cacher's Christmas Geocoin/Ornament for a FTF prize. Not super spendy - I think it was $8.50 - but I liked it very much and thought it would make a good FTF prize for the person who was first to finish the series.

 

I only have 252 finds to date but I have 21 FTF. I think the most "valuable" FTF prize I've found was a Gold Dollar. I've found several of those as FTF prizes. I'm quite happy just to find the cache and the FTF is icing on the cake. I don't do it for the prize. My favorite finds (not FTF) are Indian Head pennies I've found in a couple of caches. They are maybe worth $1.50 or so but they are special to me.

 

Now if I should ever win the lottery I wouldn't mind putting out some nice FTF prizes to help spread the wealth a bit - of course I would also have a LOT more time to cache! I can envision putting out a deep woods cache with a very, very nice FTF prize. That would be cool.

[Team Dragon Racing]

Hmm.. Well, we've only a few FTF, but one that comes to mind is a TLC video as the best. As non FTF we have also picked up a few multi-tools & a watch.

team dragon racing

[+Isonzo Karst]

A couple of FRS walkie talkies was probably the best prize we've found. We use them a good bit too, especially for off road biking where we tend to separate.

[+kungfudude]

I got a pair of $50 Volcom boardshorts! See picture. Beat that!

Edited January 8, 2006 by shawnnel

[+Runfrog]

 

Gee, some of these, if true make my $5.00 Starbucks cards cheap. As for the one with the round-trip airline tickets, I noticed it didn't say to where............

[+Runfrog]

 

 

Okay all you FTF fans, checkout my pals FTF cache GCP142

 

Mike always has GREAT caches, whether you're the FTF or the FTF or even second third.........

 

[+Prairiepartners]

My best FTF prize was a 1 year membership to the local F.O.P. . This cache was placed by some local police officers that cache.

[+evergreenhiker!]

Moun10bike geocoins if talkling FTF prizes. However, I once found a 15$ gift card for REI. Very cool! Oh yeah, in another cache, that I was FTF to, a nice portable radio was one of the swags. Took it. But those legendary MTB coins are the best, especially via a good hard hike to box.

 

My girlfriend, Inmywoods, finally got her first FTF the other day and the prize was a Flying Eagles one troy ounce sterling silver coin. Very cool!

[+Old Navy]

What a super FTF surprise awaited at the Memories of Mulder Cache, GCTAEM .

The cache was placed in memory of Helmut Mueller of Skully and Mulder et al. Helmut was one of New Jersey's first geocachers and influenced many others with his caches throughout New Jersey, unfortunately he was taken from is family and friends at 43 yrs. The FTF page was left blank in memory of this special person, so I logged in the FTF/STF page. The prize I received was a A Magellan SportTrak Map GPS, an appropriate gift left by his friends in his memory. I will always remember this special fellow geocacher every time I pick up the GPS and navigate through life.

[+CENT5]

The FTF I put in this cache (GCPB9P) was a round trip caching trip to Alaska. (I took 8 cachers to Alaska for 3 days of caching in Sept '05.) This cache memorializes the trip. (GCQRV4).

 

TIAG picked up 2 round trip Guest passes on Alaska Airlines from this cache (GCRKB9) and are headed off to Texas in 4 days to visit Pepper.

Edited February 12, 2006 by CENT5

[+Brute-Force]

Recently, I place an original M5 Industries T shirt autographed by Jamie Hyneman in this cache: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...db-0398ac3bc995

[+5¢]

I normally leave two dollar bills in my caches as ftf prizes

[compost93]

I left in my cache a gold dollar for a ftf. Mostly because the name was 'Dead Man's Cache' (cash)

Ok so its not much ,but I don't have a job. Being that I'm a kid.

 

 

---------------------------------------

You just got dissed by compost!

[+RJFerret]

Firstly, what do you think?

 

Having just scored my 100th FTF (um, two days ago) I've seen many FTF prizes and if I can, I "break it" to share with the second finder too. For me it's more about the challenge. A prize is generous, but not expected. I tend to provide them 50% of the time, trying usually to theme them to the cache (four CZ diamonds to the first three finders of "Nell's Rocks" hidden in a rocky area with a trail and road of that name).

 

Secondly, what's the best prize/trade item you found?

 

- Top-end Magellan GPSr I eBayed (from their contest) to split w/team comes second to...

- A gorgeous treasure box filled with 2-3 pounds of silver coinage (plus a bit of gold)

Let's see, there must be a pic around here somewhere...

 

Ironically, neither were "Groundspeak" listed caches now that I think about it! (The former now immortalized w/a GC.com listing, the later a bonus cache w/clues found from others...)

 

Enjoy,

 

Randy

 

PS: I consider lottery tickets the worst FTF prize, far worse than having no prize since the $$'s just wasted.

[Trail bandit_blood hound]

Best Ftf prize i got was a mp3 player which is awsome and no headphones i would think $1000$ is too much but thats my opinion

~Adam~

[+Strider - King of Gondor]

I went caching on a FTF and all I got was a T-Shirt , actually a nice t-shirt from the local state park friends group. Sure would be nice to have went for a couple plane tickets, MP3 players, a load of SILVER!!!!

[+SunshineGang]

We got a set of New GRMS radios once. That sold for about 50-60 bucks at the time

 

We almost always leave something as an FTF prize

 

Typically it is a geocoin...

 

We happen to have a bunch of really coin ones to give away right now

 

GCTXK9

 

Edited April 7, 2006 by SunshineGang

[+Team Maccabee]

While not exactly a valuable FTF prize (original cost <$10.00), this recycled FTF prize has been pretty popular among our quite competitive FTF community, otherwise known as the Tiresome Usual Suspects:

 

Tiresome Usual Suspect FTF Bell

 

As the owner of the TUS FTF Bell, I have to say that it's better than TV.... a lot better.

[+Team JSAM]

So far a 5.00 bill but then again I only have one FTF.

[+RickBlick & Chick]

Have 9 FTFs to date, only 4 held FTF rewards. Most prized by me is the small plastic FTF trophy because I had to do a 3 part multi at 1am to get it (first 2 stages were micros). Best 'value' was a scratch off lottery ticket that turned out to be a $50 winner. The cache had been published for 4 days before I went to get it.

Love it when that happens!

[jamieb520]

only got one FTF so far. It was a 15 dollar gift certificate for some store that sells sunglasses. I thought that was kinda cool. I wear prescription eye glasses, but I thought I could use the 15 bucks for something other then sunglasses, like maybe something else that they would sell there. Then I read the back of the card. Good only in the USA. The cache is in Ontario (a long way from the boarder). I haven't been to the States since I was in highschool, and I don't plan to go there any time soon. It could have been useful to someone else. But thats what my FTF was.

Edited May 21, 2006 by jamieb520

[+50Cal]

I had been out caching all day and I came back to log my finds. As I was making the logs, I realized that a brand new cache had been approved that morning, and it was located about 2 miles from my current location. The description said that there was a "Nice $urprise" for the FTF. I headed out to find this cache, and sure enough I was the first to find it. As I opened the cache, there was a $2 bill inside. I am not very superstitious, but I have always heard that these bills were very bad luck. So, I left it for the next person to find and just signed the log. I didn't get the big cash surprise I was hoping for, but I did log my first FTF!

[+MaatAset]

I'm getting ready to place a series of caches, that I am hoping will be accepted, that will be story driven and very much like a game... it's based on my all time favorite game, Myst. Being that I am a fairly poor college student, nothing in there is particularly expensive, but I will be including a number of good items that are related to the game.. including the original game itself, one fo the books, one of the books on audio cassette, and a collector's figure from Myst III. The cache won't be quick to get to..it's gonna require work, so I only hope that those few things I managed to drum up will be incentive enough to bring people out to do it.

[+Poidawg]

Calphoto.com offers on line up to date information on where to located wildflowers, wildlife, and other goodies related to outdoor photography in California and parts of the northwest. The owner has on line photo classes and puts out a newsletter as well. These are great services for the outdoor photographer, the on line wildflower hotsheet is free, anyone can contribute or get information from it. I thought a CD for the FTF prize on the first cache I just placed, highlighting places in California to see and photograph wildlife would be just the ticket. I got the CD with the California wildflower places on it for the FTF on my next cache placement. I thought they were unique and were a quality FTF.

[+scavok]

I got a handheld TV for being FTF on an 'evil hide' cache. Don't really get to keep it, it just means that I had to come up with an evil hide to give to the FTF on my cache.

 

Fun

[+A,J&BG]

We have had a few ftf's... But never a ftf prize until a few days ago. We got a IDtimberwolf coin that just came out! Of course we had already ordered two... So my girls claimed this one under their name and they are going to send it traveling!

[+Moore9KSUcats]

This wasn't a FTF prize, and actually, the cache had been out for at least a year by the time we found it... anyway, we picked up a gift card for $100 for the GAP! Several other cachers had been there between when it was placed, and when we picked it up. I guess they left it just for us! With 4 kids in the family, something like that sure came in handy. We went home, and went shopping! (Unfortunately, $100 doesn't go very far at GAP... but it was fun,anyway!

 

Malia

[+treasure_hunter]

Dinner at El Azul's Mexican Restaurant! Me and my father went on a cache dash in the local area and one of our local cachers whom we happen to be good friends with took us out to dinner! Thanks (SBCP).

[+flipflopnick]

last week during a long run of superb weather for the UK, I kayaked across to a Scottish Island. Only 2 km off shore in a bay. Full report at GCQP7K. Owner suggested there was a FTF gift. But that did not motivate me. The adventure of getting there did. FTF was a bonus.

 

FTF was a bottle of Stella Artois beer. Best before end of June 2006. Good job I found it. Cache will not get many visitors.

Only problem is I can't drink beer, as body intolerant of grains.

So gave to beer swilling friend.

[+danieloliveira]

The most unusual FTF prize I was given occured in a very nice cache in Lisbon. The cache in question is "Dress Code [Lisboa]" by SUp3rFM & Cruella (GCTYTF). The Lunchtime Gang, that's me and a partner, bargao_henriques, were the first to tackle this one on a very grey and stormy lunchtime when it literally poured cats and dogs. While were were sheltering from the heavy rain, we saw another two cachers, BTRodrigues and 2Cotas, who had also come for the FTF.

We ended up holed in the same shelter waiting for the storm to subside but the strong winds meant that were were getting wet sideways. Anyway, after the rain subsided, by which time we were completely wet, we eventually found the cache with the help of the owners who had inadvertently made a mistake with the clues and were sending us the wrong way.

About a week later we had an event cache and the owners, SUp3rFM & Cruella, arrived bearing a blanket for each of us to compensate for the soaking we had had a few days before.

[+Team LaLonde]

We have only a couple of FTFs and haven't found anything too spectacular. On the other hand, we usually try to leave something noteworthy in our caches. We'll be hiding one next week with a first generation Sony Playstation, a like-new baseball glove and an autographed sports-related photgraphic print (framed and ready to hang). I know that people will seldom trade even for items like this, but we like to ensure that the first few finders get something worthwhile.

 

Other items we leave in newly hidden caches are tools and gift certificates. We are toying with the idea of buying certificate paper and making FTF certificates as this seems more personal.

[+GreyingJay]

Wow. Some real nice prizes out there.

 

I've taken unactivated geocoins and $3 in gift certificates to Tim Horton's (good for a coffee and donut or so), but then again I've only ever had 6 FTF's to my name so far. The one cache I did had a nice little FTF certificate done up, which I appreciated. I'm not that big on fancy prizes, but I guess they're nice if you can afford it

[+NatureGuy360]

The best (and only) FTF prize that I have gotten is my own self gratitude on a job well done.

 

Yes, I know it's all about the journey not the destination.

[+Galaad]

In the province of Québec, geocachers have started to include lotery scratch cards for FTFs. They are well appreciated because when they are forgotten, comments are made... !

[+bkeller81]

Only have 2 FTF, but yesterday I headed out to a 3 part cache in hopes of being FTF. Just got approved that morning. The description stated there was a prize for the FTF. The first part and the final were about 10 miles apart so I decided to pick up some other caches while I was in the area. Well, that was my mistake. By the time I finally reached the 3rd part (about 6:30pm), two other groups had already been there. But as luck would have it the FTF prize was still there. A brand new compass. Well, I have been meaning to get one for a while since I have the Garmin GPSmap 60 and I have to be moving for the compass to work. So this was the perfect find for me. Not real valuable, but very useful.

[+Rev Mike]

Well, the best FTF prize I ever got was beer. Sealed and kept cold in a swamp with a bottle opener and directions for first finder in the ammo box. Not going to say who did that or what cache it was but it was not on that would have been found by kids. Way too dangerous to be a family cache plus the hider had a good idea that I was coming for it.

 

- Rev Mike

[+GreyingJay]

Beer in the swamp, eh? I'm not sure I'd be up for that...

[crocket7]

 

Gee, some of these, if true make my $5.00 Starbucks cards cheap. As for the one with the round-trip airline tickets, I noticed it didn't say to where............