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Alternatives To Altoids Tins & Film Cannisters


Hogosha

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It seems that here is quite the love-hate relationship with Altiods Tins & Film canisters as small, economical caching containers. While they are abundant and easy to come by, they do lack the ability to keep the contents (logbook) dry.

 

A Witz Surf-Safe container is nearly identical in size to an Altoids Tin, and will keep the contents nice and dry. They come in many colors, including clear. They also have the tubular type containers. You frequently will see these at Boat shops, and Water parks, and if they can survive a Water Park I think they will hold up to caching. They can be picked up on the cheap at the end of season sales.

 

Lock-n-Lock also makes a few small containers which rival the size of the small Pelican and Otterbox containers.

 

Also, one of my favorite, cheap, small containers are the green, plastic WATERPROOF match containers. You can even get a tiny bit more space inside by adding the appropriate size O-ring to the outside.

 

If most of us have spent good money on a GPS unit, should we also not spend equally as wisely on a good cache container?

 

Defectfully

Patrick

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I just ordered 20 deon containers - 10 for me and 10 for a friend. There should be some cropping up in my area in the future. :D

 

I ordered them online for $1.79 each = $35.80. With shipping the order for 20 totaled $43.25 which brought the individual price up to only $2.16. Not bad at all for such nice containers!

 

[Edit]

Adding link by request: http://www.armysurpluswarehouse.com/itemDe...oduct=&item=559

Edited by Thrak
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I just ordered 20 deon containers - 10 for me and 10 for a friend. There should be some cropping up in my area in the future. :D

 

I ordered them online for $1.79 each = $35.80.  With shipping the order for 20 totaled $43.25 which brought the individual price up to only $2.16.  Not bad at all for such nice containers!

There's a surplus store in Lewistown, PA that sell them for $0.75 each. I bought 8 the last time I was there, probably should have picked up more.

 

The only downside to the wonderful containers is people tend to not shut them tight. They feel the "click" when one side of the lid snaps on, and don't realize that the other side needs to click into place too. But hey, they are waterproof if they're shut right. And they don't rust. And they're even green or black, so no need for extra camo paint. Great little container, and cheap too.

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If most of us have spent good money on a GPS unit, should we also not spend equally as wisely on a good cache container?

 

It's a balancing act. You want to have a good quality container, but you don't want to spend too much on it. It never feels good to spend a lot of money on something that you throw out in the wild and don't know how soon it might be destroyed or stolen by others.

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Waterproof match containers in the camping section of Wal Mart for under a buck. Their about the same size as a film canister(more narrow, but make it up in length) and a few feet from those containers, you should see the camo duct tape to wrap them in(unless you plan on hiding it in a pumpkin patch) Another is the beach stash tube. You know, the plastic container sold with the water toys/supplies to keep your keys/money/etc in while you swim or ski. I used one of those for a multi leg which was under a rock in the middle of a stream and not a drop. Hope this helped.

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WOW! I completely forgot about decon containers! They dried up fpr a while, but seems like they are back.

Decons are OK, but every cache I've used decons for have gotten soaked at one time or another. They are not always watertight (I've noticed variations in how securely the lid fits) and sometimes I think people don't close the lid properly.

 

Its bad enough that I no longer use them as cache containers. I still used them for interim stages of multis, but mostly I toss my decons away as a trade item.

 

I've replaced nearly all of my decon caches with Lock n Locks because I'm tired of making maint trips to replace wet logbooks and contents.

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I just ordered 20 deon containers - 10 for me and 10 for a friend. There should be some cropping up in my area in the future. :)

 

I ordered them online for $1.79 each = $35.80.  With shipping the order for 20 totaled $43.25 which brought the individual price up to only $2.16.  Not bad at all for such nice containers!

There's a surplus store in Lewistown, PA that sell them for $0.75 each. I bought 8 the last time I was there, probably should have picked up more.

 

The only downside to the wonderful containers is people tend to not shut them tight. They feel the "click" when one side of the lid snaps on, and don't realize that the other side needs to click into place too. But hey, they are waterproof if they're shut right. And they don't rust. And they're even green or black, so no need for extra camo paint. Great little container, and cheap too.

Man I wish the stores around here had them. I've tried the 3 surplus stores I know of in the area and received blank looks at all of them.

 

I put a comment in my cache page regarding making sure all four corners are snapped shut tightly. I only have one decon container out at the moment but it has been accessed during nasty weather and has been sealed tightly by all (so far). I realize that many folks don't read the listings carefully so may miss the warning about closing it well but, in future hides, I'll put that in red or something so it stands out. They are wonderful containers if properly closed.

 

As for the color - I paint them anyway. That label on them seems to be permanantly affixed so I paint over it with flat camo paint from Walmart. I also use the wire wheel on my bench grinder to take off the raised lettering on the lid that talks about toxic contents. :huh:

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It seems that here is quite the love-hate relationship with Altiods Tins & Film canisters as small, economical caching containers. While they are abundant and easy to come by, they do lack the ability to keep the contents (logbook) dry.

 

A Witz Surf-Safe container is nearly identical in size to an Altoids Tin, and will keep the contents nice and dry. They come in many colors, including clear. They also have the tubular type containers. You frequently will see these at Boat shops, and Water parks, and if they can survive a Water Park I think they will hold up to caching. They can be picked up on the cheap at the end of season sales.

 

Lock-n-Lock also makes a few small containers which rival the size of the small Pelican and Otterbox containers.

 

Also, one of my favorite, cheap, small containers are the green, plastic WATERPROOF match containers. You can even get a tiny bit more space inside by adding the appropriate size O-ring to the outside.

 

If most of us have spent good money on a GPS unit, should we also not spend equally as wisely on a good cache container?

 

Defectfully

Patrick

Ziploc came out with a nice container. Large enough to accomodate regular treasures and small enough to hide easily. AND they have a screw on cap.

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