Cache Contents

[+Team Royal]

I am very new to geocaching. Just received a Magellan eXplorist 200 for Christmas and are really getting into this. Although we are in a rather remote area there are not too many caches to hunt for, especially in the winter. My Mrs. and I have got 2 finds now.

 

My question / comment is...

 

Are there any rules and or guidelines to the contents of a cache. The 2 that we have found appear not to be too well taken care of. The trinkets are old / abused looking and of no significant value, other than the Travel Bugs in both. (We do understand that it is Winter with about 15 inches of snow on the ground.) Are the cache owners to check on their caches periodically to remove "junk", or is it ok for a finder to clean things up and make it more interesting and pleasurable for the next finder?

 

We are already planning our first hide and making it a cache that will want to be found! Something more than "McToys" we are thinking. Are there rules to contents and the value of items it contains? When we are ready to list the cache, is it ok to meantion the contents and that items of equal value should be traded?

 

Thanx for letting me get this off my chest...

geobassman

[+Team Tired Boy]

Most caches seem to be filled mostly with junk. Nevertheless, I wouldn't take it upon myself to remove it; one man's junk may be another man's treasure. The rule is that you should leave something of higher value than what you take. Unfortunately, it seems that lots of peope don't follow that rule.

[+Team Teuton]

This is typical of my ammo box caches....

 

 

[+Team Royal]

Beautiful photo... exactly what we had in mind!!!

 

Thanks...

geobassman

[+Team Neos]

Welcome to geocaching..I hope you enjoy it as much as we do.

 

There are some guidelines for geocaches. Here are a couple of links:

 

FAQ

 

Guidelines for hiding a cache

 

Someone else will probably point you to some previous forum conversations about the way that caches degrade in value over time--but it is good to try to keep the quality fun.

 

My take on the answers to your questions:

 

Most caches start out well stocked. Most degrade over time. Some cache owners go back and replenish the contents, some just augument during maintenence runs, some just allow them to change naturally and eventually archive them.

 

There are no rules about the value of the items put in the caches. You can start with ten cent items or thousand dollar items, as your pocketbook allows. Most people try for a mix hoping others will trade somewhat equally. I start mine out with items that range from about 50 cents to about 10 dollars. Two months later the average value is around a dollar per item. That doesn't bother me much. I carry items with me to trade that range from about 50 cents to about ten dollars. I rarely leave a ten dollar item, generally leave a few dollar items to fill up the cache a bit. I think that trade value degrades because people don't have a clue what the items cost and that people trade two or three smaller value items for one larger value item.

 

I think that if your cache was somewhat remote and if you said specifically that all the items in the cache were worth 10 dollars each, and suggested that folks trade other ten dollar items, the cache might stay nice for three or four months...I haven't experimented with this yet.

 

It is very nice to improve the quality of the caches that you visit. I enjoy doing it--especially for caches that are in good places or are exceptionally well hidden. Personally, I like to trade for unique things, more than for the dollar value.

[+briansnat]

Here are some of my typical caches, at least as they started:

 

 

Here is was what was left in one of my caches when I retreived it:

 

 

Not complaining, but that's just the way things are.

Edited January 2, 2006 by briansnat

[+Team Cotati]

Most caches seem to be filled mostly with junk.  Nevertheless, I wouldn't take it upon myself to remove it; one man's junk may be another man's treasure.  The rule is that you should leave something of higher value than what you take.  Unfortunately, it seems that lots of peope don't follow that rule.

Where is that rule published? Further, if it was important to me that my caches' contents remained essentially unchanged wrt their 'value' or 'worth', then I wouldn't have placed them in the first place. My experience has been that in general people who find caches aren't all that excited about the contents any way. After several months have passed, even those hides that had listed their original contents stand little chance of them having remained that way. Since there is no practical way for a cache hunter to predict what might be found in any particular cache, there is no reason to be disapointed that some really nice item was not there. If you do happen to find something that is really appealing to you then that is really nice. To expect that an activity such as geocaching that is growing at exponential rates and represents a very broad spectrum of the general population is some how going to remain in it's original pristine state is naive in the extreme. To be honest, the only thing that I REALLY do care about is that there be a usable log book. Sometimes(rarely), not even that is true....I do not sweat it. Stuff happens, exceptions are not the rule. Silly stuff in caches makes The Team chuckle.....on to the next cache and the adventure that it might hold.

Edited January 3, 2006 by Team Cotati

[+GPSOkie]

I just placed my first cache a couple of weeks ago and I tried to put some nice stuff in it. I'm sure as time goes by, the value of the cache will decrease. It just seems to be the nature of the beast. I do have to admit that I found a cache today that had some nice items. I actually wasn't sure what I wanted to take from the cache initially because there were several nice items. Unfortuantely, that is not always the case. When I come across a cache like that, I take nothing and try to leave something nice or of interest.

[+Team Cotati]

I just placed my first cache a couple of weeks ago and I tried to put some nice stuff in it. I'm sure as time goes by, the value of the cache will decrease. It just seems to be the nature of the beast. I do have to admit that I found a cache today that had some nice items. I actually wasn't sure what I wanted to take from the cache initially because there were several nice items. Unfortuantely, that is not always the case. When I come across a cache like that, I take nothing and try to leave something nice or of interest.

Just curious, why the long wait?

[+Kai Team]

We have 10 caches with trade items and the contents of all of them have deteriorated over time. We've restocked some.

 

We rarely trade anymore because there is rarely anything we want in the caches we find (even those that are well stocked). We've come to see trading as more for kids than for adults (young children really get a kick out of a literal "treasure hunt").

 

In addition to the official geocaching.com guidelines, a voluntary set of guidelines that gets into the ethics of it all was created by geocachers here in the forums. See the sixth main bullet in this section ("If you exchange trade items...").

 

Of course the guidelines are voluntary, not eveyone knows about them, some people who know about them refuse to follow anyone else's "rules", etc.

 

All you can do is to resolve to play the game in a way that you think is fair and equitable.

 

PS - As for removing "junk", I remove things that are potentially dangerous (broken objects with jagged edges) or damaging to the cache or its contents (e.g. soggy wet paper) and appreciate it if others do the same when they find my caches.

[+maggieszoo]

"Trade up, trade even, or don't trade"

 

I have found that some people have a much higher opinion of their crap than I do!

 

Of course, I did leave a golf ball in a cache the other day. I'm sorry! I was so tired I didn't want to drag the swag bag all over creation and most of the caches all day hadn't had good stuff in them, but this one had foreign coins AND a wooden nickel! I couldn't help myself, the evil cacher in me left a golf ball and a new geocoin......