Swag Ideas For Big Containers

[CamoCachers]

i treated myself to a christmas present earlier of a few very large ammo cans. i went to pick up a few small ones, and went crazy like a kid in a candy store when i saw the large cans they had. i walked out with $75 in ammo cans

 

so now im dreaming up ideas on how to properly use cans of this size. one thing i cant figure out, is what am i going to fill them up with?

 

so i need suggestions. id like to keep the items fairly cheap ($2 or less), but useful. and ideally they would be of a decent size, so i dont have to buy $50 worth of stuff to fill one. id like to stock them with decent items that an adult would like to find. i plan on placing them a good ways out, so theyll be work to find them. i dont like to disappoint. they should get something for the effort!

 

weve been stocking up on some items lately, so i have a good selection of regular sized flashlights, also some 16oz water bottles, small first aide kits, camoflauge bottle coozies, and some LED light key chains. and well be using small ammo cans for FTF prizes for them

 

what are some other ideas?

[+BlueDeuce]

If they are the seriously big ones consider a book exchange.

 

BTW, I wouldn't put water in a cache. I know it's been debated, but most people aren't going to drink something they don't know where it came from.

 

 

edit: typo, again

Edited December 16, 2005 by BlueDeuce

[CamoCachers]

water bottles, not bottles of water

[Hugh Jazz]

You can get a lot of big swag for dirt cheap at garage sales. I use this means to fill the Hugh Jazz caches I deploy. Largest wast 24 gallons in size. You can fill up a 24 gallon container for less than $5 at a garage sale, and it's good stuff too.

 

Stuffed animals, books, toy dinosaurs, dolls, puzzles, games.

[+Snoogans]

Really BIG travel bugs and McToys.

[+BlueDeuce]

water bottles, not bottles of water

ah, my mistake.

 

Carry on then.

 

You talking this size?

 

Edited December 16, 2005 by BlueDeuce

[CamoCachers]

unfortunately, garage sale season is over in indiana, theres snow on the ground

 

books are a good idea, ill keep an eye out for some outdoors related ones. hadnt thought about that one before. i shouldve, ive found a few in caches before!

 

i dont wanna use stuffed animals and kiddie stuff in these caches. theyll all be way out of the way for youngins to find. we used them in our 5 gallon bucket cache at a city park and its chocked full and we spent very little. theyre great items to use in sme circumstances. but these will be more adult oriented though.

[CamoCachers]

water bottles, not bottles of water

ah, my mistake.

 

Carry on then.

 

You talking this size?

 

yea i got two that sized, and one even bigger also one of the tall ones, its 3ft tall.

[+BadAndy]

unfortunately, garage sale season is over in indiana, theres snow on the ground

If you're in snow country, how about long handled windsheild scrapers?

[+BlueDeuce]

unfortunately, garage sale season is over in indiana, theres snow on the ground

If you're in snow country, how about long handled windsheild scrapers?

Because it's impossible to trade even.

Edited December 16, 2005 by BlueDeuce

[+Clan Delaney]

This may sound ridiculous, but why don't you put some smaller ammo cans in your mega can? I know, not exactly cheap, but maybe you could just put one as the FTF? Maybe make it a fully stocked and ready-to-go cache that the first finder can take and hide themselves? I've got a can (the size of the one in the pic) on loan and I've stuffed it with 7 lock&locks, each stocked with swag and logbooks. A breeder cache, but this one doesn't breed micros.

 

As far as smaller cheaper swag goes... warm socks, gloves or mittens, flashlights, TB tags, GC cache stickers, gift cards perhaps: Dunkin Donuts, Mc Donalds, etc., personal certificates for things that you can't leave in caches, like multi-tools, that the taker can redeem from you at a future event.... and the list goes on.

[+BlueDeuce]

and will[sic] be using small ammo cans for FTF prizes for them

[+nfa]

I set up a cache using a 120 mm mortar tube ammo-can, and filled it with long stuff from the dollar store...umbrellas, tiki-lamps, backscratchers, feather dusters, etc.

 

No Weiner Dogs Please!

 

jamie

[CamoCachers]

im planning on using small ammo cans for FTF prizes.

 

as far as trading even, it would be mentioned on the cache page its not expected. these items would be available for the taking without trading. the plan is for a 4.5 star terrain rating for at least one of them. youll have to work to get to them. the swag will be an extra something for the find besides the smiley face.

 

gloves and socks are good ideas. a few ice scrapers and back scratchers would be good for the tall can. and umbrellas, too.

 

great ideas guys. keepem coming!

[+Clan Delaney]

and will[sic] be using small ammo cans for FTF prizes for them

brain's in the shop. I got the loaner.

[+BlueDeuce]

and will[sic] be using small ammo cans for FTF prizes for them

brain's in the shop. I got the loaner.

It means it didn't as sound ridiculous as you thought.

[+briansnat]

books are a good idea, ill keep an eye out for some outdoors related ones. hadnt thought about that one before. i shouldve, ive found a few in caches before!

 

Books are a great idea. Consider making a Bookcrossing cache.

[+Thrak]

water bottles, not bottles of water

ah, my mistake.

 

Carry on then.

 

You talking this size?

 

I don't think you could fit more than one of those kids in a cache that size. You need a much bigger box if you want to fit both of them in it.........

Edited December 16, 2005 by Thrak

[+russell_53040]

May I add you might want to paint or write GeoCaching on them. When I go get ammo containers that is the first thing I do. Whatever you choose to put it there it will be great. I took a cooler and painted it up and put it out in the woods full of toys for kids and the best part they could take what they wanted no trading. Have to get rid of all the Mc toys some how

[+altosaxplayer]

Books are a great idea. Consider making a Bookcrossing cache.

 

Very true. Books are a good way to fill up a large cache. They are very good trade items and are usually cheap to buy.

[+nfa]

I set an 18 gallon tupperware container cache in the woods near my house that I filled, and continue to fill with mugs...the listing tells caches that they can TMLN (took mug, left nothing)...I don't know why, but mugs seem to reproduce in our cupboards, so I always have a couple that I can run out to the cache when it runs low...

 

mug-swap cache

 

I also set up a bookswap cache, and a dollar-store "hardware-store" cache using 5 gallon buckets with watertight(ish) lids.

 

The big containers get lots of good reviews from cachers cruising through my area.

 

jamie

Edited December 16, 2005 by NFA

[+Moo and Wug Smith]

Where in Indiana did you find the ammo cans. I went to what used to be a good surplus store at 71st and Michigan in Indianapolis the other day, but they are now carrying dolls, etc more flea market. Haven't had a chance to get to the other stores in town. Thanks from another IN cacher.

[CamoCachers]

i got them from the army surplus store in brownstown. from indy youd wanna take 65s and take the seymour exit, then follow 50w and its right there on 50 across from jay c in brownstown. id guess itd be about an hour drive coming from indy. thats what it was for me, im right across the ohio river from louisville.

[+Clothahump]

water bottles, not bottles of water

ah, my mistake.

 

Carry on then.

 

You talking this size?

 

As a slight hijack -

 

Those are two absolutely charming young ladies. I'm feeling kinda maudlin these days - my young lady turned 19 on 12/01. She's off at college now. When she was that age, I walked on water and she wanted to be with me all the time. Now, I'll be lucky to see her for more than an hour over the Xmas break.

 

Cherish them. They will grow up way, way, wayyyyyyy too fast.

[Major Catastrophe]

what are some other ideas?

Well, on the theory that this thread is about "Swag Ideas for Big Containers," you could turn your garage into a cache container. Get a Hummer for the first finder.....

 

[+RockyRaab]

Books and mugs are great ideas. You could have a video exchange, a CD exchange, a software exchange or several other kinds of "library" cache.

 

Then there's stuffed animals, baseball caps; or a funny one I read about in one of these posts: a "lost sock" cache. That's where people drop in all those single socks they can't match up after washing/drying them. SOMEWHERE out there, there's a match!

[+Deliveryguy428]

I've not gotten anythign that big, my final for a cache I own which is a 7 layer puzzle cache is an ammo can and I went and stocked it with stuff from the camping section of Wal-Mart and Bass Pro Shop.

 

The FTF told me he likes how all my ammo cans are usually stocked with usefull items. His fav is the 10 dollar or so first aid kits I leave as possible FTF prizes if they wanna take them.

[+Coal7]

The doller store here in Colorado sells mini FM radios for a buck. I picked up some to place in caches I really like.

[+runnerfam]

Check out www. bookcrossing.com. I think this would be an ideal bookcrossing cache!! (You register the books with Bookcrossing and people log the books they've found so you can track them.) There are a couple of Bookcrossing caches already, but for us book lovers, there can never be too many.

[+Ed & Julie]

As a slight hijack -

 

Those are two absolutely charming young ladies. I'm feeling kinda maudlin these days - my young lady turned 19 on 12/01. She's off at college now. When she was that age, I walked on water and she wanted to be with me all the time. Now, I'll be lucky to see her for more than an hour over the Xmas break.

 

Cherish them. They will grow up way, way, wayyyyyyy too fast.

Paxil

Zoloft

 

Ed

[+jwigner]

I just recently put out a .50 cal ammo can. It's not the biggest in the world, but I know of at least one cacher that left a DVD in it. I was impressed the DVD would fit because I left some diecast metal airplane in the cache, and they were still int he plastic!

 

You might consider setting up your own movie rental cache and call it Geoflix.

[+DocDiTTo]

You could do a spin off of the "adopt a cache" idea, where finders take a cache container from your cache and do a new hide themselves. Except rather than having your finders take away a micro, they could take away a small ammo can.

[+matfam]

water bottles, not bottles of water

ah, my mistake.

 

Carry on then.

 

You talking this size?

 

Is there a cache somewhere that I can put MY kids in. I dont want to trade---

[+Davispak]

I usually fill my cache with regular stuff but make them a theme, and my FTF prize I try to make match the theme but it will be worth about 2-3times the value of the other stuff. One I'm getting ready to place has magnets. most costing about a buck a piece, but the FTF one is a Star wars pewter magnet worth about $7.00

It wasn't about the money as much as about the prize being special. I had one with sports cards in it and the FTF prize was a sports lapel pin that I got through the memebership fan club.

Big cans call for big stuff, and if it is a hike out there how about something that goes along with that? Sleeping mat, compass, camping supplies, maybe find a nice backpack that isn't too expensive and make it the FTF prize.

I look at that you only have to purchase ONE FTF prize so why not make it a good one.

[Clan Riffster]

We've got a couple large containers around these parts that are tool caches. Flea markets are great places to pick up inexpensive tools, and they'll take up a lot of space.

[Hugh Jazz]

Here's the initial swag-load from The Hugh Jazz Cooler Cache:

 

 

Total cost: $2 at a garage sale here in "The Best Kept Secret in the Midwest," Wichita Kansas. From March through November, every Thursday through Sunday is Garage Sale Day. Bargains abound. You can get some really good swag.

Edited January 20, 2006 by Hugh Jazz

[+The Canning Clan]

we just did a mega cache and in it...of all things...was a fax machine

 

http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_detai...98-edab3f391992

[+Isonzo Karst]

I browse Amazon for used field guides. I've gotten some great deals on them too. My own shelves are stocked that way, and when left as cache goodies they're ALWAYS the first item taken. I paid .50 for Gil Nelson's Field Guide to Florida Trees. Of course, shipping on used books is generally $3.49 - on the other hand, if you can get a couple of items from the same vendor you can end up with a net cost of around $2.50 per book. Just search field guide, sorted by least expensive.

[+HolyCowboys]

books are a good idea, ill keep an eye out for some outdoors related ones.

A walk in the woods by Bill Bryson

 

A story about rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail.

 

Funny Funny Funny . A hard book to put down.

[+Shirpa]

I placed a large ammo can and filled with army surplus. Mainly Decon kits and waterproof matchstick holders to spawn more new caches in the area.

Careful though, the cooler the swag, the quicker the muggle

 

Uncle Shirpa's Army Surplus