Old Caches Rock!

[+Kiamichi Muskrat]

Lately I've become obsessed with old caches. When I am looking at an area and can only do a certain amount of caches there, I will choose the old ones everytime. Two days ago, I found "Tulsa Cache" in Tulsa (duh) which was placed in 2001. Somehow I find it amazing that the old ones can hang around. It usually means they were WELL hidden in the first place, which makes for a good hunt.

What I find amazing is that so many people back in the day hid caches on vacation or whatever, then never logged onto the site anymore. They would be amazed today to see how successful their caches have been.

Are any of you interested in old caches, or do you mainly keep up with the new hides?

[+StarBrand]

Anything a few years old does tend to be a cache that is more fun to me. I don't usually seek them out purposefully but now that you mention it, I might.

[+Clothahump]

:: reads message, then takes off glasses, wipes them and rereads title again ::

 

Durn.

 

I thought the title read Old Cachers Rock!

 

I was going to respond with a subtle..............."So - how YOU doin'?".

 

Then I looked at Muskrat's profile.

 

No offense meant, but I don't think I'm going to say that now.

[Mr.Yuck]

Lately I've become obsessed with old caches. When I am looking at an area and can only do a certain amount of caches there, I will choose the old ones everytime. Two days ago, I found "Tulsa Cache" in Tulsa (duh) which was placed in 2001. Somehow I find it amazing that the old ones can hang around. It usually means they were WELL hidden in the first place, which makes for a good hunt.

What I find amazing is that so many people back in the day hid caches on vacation or whatever, then never logged onto the site anymore. They would be amazed today to see how successful their caches have been.

Are any of you interested in old caches, or do you mainly keep up with the new hides?

 

Completely obsessed with them! Just found one Saturday, the 1,577th cache in the world, placed early April 2001, just outside of Rochester, N.Y. And yes, I too have always noted how so many of them were "vacation caches", and that many (if not most) were placed by people who've long since disappeared from the hobby.

 

But of course I'm a confirmed anti-micro extremist. I don't know how many other people notice or even care whether a hide is old school or not.

[+CYBret]

I found this one Monday. I was fascinated by the timing of the hide. Really made me think.

 

I love finding the old ones too. I think I have one more pre-2001 cache on my local PQ. Maybe I'll go get it tomorrow.

 

Bret

[+Belfrypotters]

We recently did GC4E0, which was placed in central Alberta in February 2001, at the top of a hill. It has been found quite a few times over the years by muggles, but they've always left it intact. A hunter even left a pair of binoculars in the cache so future cachers could enjoy the view! It was kind of cool finding a cache that has been there that long.

[bogleman]

My 6th cache ever found happened to be the oldest in PA.

 

Many of the old caches in my area are placed in areas that most folks don't go, which helps them stick around.

 

I've found several old caches and I get a kick out of reading the notebooks and on-line logs, smelling the old musty container.

[+WeightMan]

Another thing about the older caches. They were definitely placed with the idea that the owner wanted to bring people to the site of the cache. Some of the newer ones are placed just to place a cache with no thought as to the area. Wally World caches come to mind.

[+Olar]

Yes they do rock and GCBBA, the first cache in Canada, will really be rockin' in June with a 6th anniversary bash, plaque placement and a geocoin. See this thread for details.

 

Olar

[+Kiamichi Muskrat]

Another cool thing about old caches: it appears the cachers in those days mostly used their real names. All of the oldest caches in my area are by folks like "Ron Haveman" and "Craig Wirtz." Wouldn't it be weird if we all abandoned our handles and used real names again?

[+Maingray]

Completely agree. My obsession spilling over into making sure that all the old crusty caches near me that are on the verge of archival due to neglect are adopted and maintained. They deserve it, rather than all these cheeky young upstarts!

[+The Blue Quasar]

They don't make 'em like they used to.

 

We talked about this very thing while caching today... even when the old caches are removed... no one puts in a new one near where it was.

 

And why?

 

The only reasons we could come up with is either

 

"Well that spot belongs to so-and-so, cause they had a cache there" (People that have been around a while)

or

"People don't like those kinds of placements" (People that started recently and think that Roadside Caches are actually how it is done)

 

I've pulled out 20 or so of my old caches... I might put new ones back in those spots, just to get people to walk more than 50 yards to get a cache.

 

The Blue Quasar

[+The Jester]

I enjoy them a lot. I logged the oldest in the state as my 500th and did a three week trip last year so I could log Mingo as my 1000th.

 

I'm working on setting a 'Challenge' cache (similar to the Delorme Challenge) with the oldest caches in the state.

[+Kit Fox]

GC55F was a very memorable cache for me.

[+Kiamichi Muskrat]

 

I'm working on setting a 'Challenge' cache (similar to the Delorme Challenge) with the oldest caches in the state.

 

That is an awesome idea.

 

...

 

Mind if I steal it?

[CacheNCarryMA]

I own a successful travel bug whose goal is to visit old caches, particularly the oldest active caches in an area.

 

It's been to the oldest active caches in CA, MA, and Europe.

[+leather-man]

I've been watching the oldest cache east of the Mississippi since January when I started caching as it's 5 1/2 miles from my home. GC39

 

I'm saving it for summer. I know the area and also know a short cut to the cache site but in the spirit of this hobby I'm going to do it the way it was intended and take the long hike in. That may mean getting a bit wet so July looks like my time to go for it.

[+Isonzo Karst]

Slightly off topic, but in reference to The Jester's idea of doing an oldest caches challenge, the latest version of the guidelines pretty much eliminates the "email me for coords" option. If you're planning something like the DeLorme Challenges, better get with your local reviewer before you get a lot of effort into it.

[+ganlet]

I'm a newbie so this might be a simple question but how would one go about identifying what is the oldest cache in the wild.

[+Isonzo Karst]

ganlet, look at the cache list for your state - then jump to the last page. They're in published order.

[+ganlet]

ganlet, look at the cache list for your state - then jump to the last page. They're in published order.

 

thank you for that, but my question was more for the oldest active cache period not within a certain state or even country (although i would assume it to be in the US)

 

actually too complicated it how would one find the most logged cache.

 

sry im off topic

Edited April 21, 2006 by ganlet

[+Isonzo Karst]

Mingo

[TinyMoon & The Pumpkin King]

We love doing the old or "original" caches, it seems that they were placed with more zest and adventure than the current crop...and about 1/2 a year ago we came up with the idea of also hunting for "old" or "original" caches that are now archived caches. I forget how we even came up with the idea, but we've discovered that many caches that have been mothballed or listed as "missing" are actually still there. Of course you can't log a "find" on archived caches anymore so your "find" list is artificially lower than it actually should be. Also you can't directly "view" archived caches on the website. They won't show up on the maps or zipcodes. You need to look at the profile of an "old-school" cacher who's been around awhile and then scroll thru' all their finds, only then will you see the hidden "archived" caches. It's a great way to rescue TravelBugs listed as missing-in-action!

[Moun10Bike]

Of course you can't log a "find" on archived caches anymore

 

Yes, you can.

[+Corp Of Discovery]

I like finding older caches too and have a bookmark list of the ones that I've found from 2000 & 2001. I'm gonna go against the grain tho and say that other than their age nothing else much distinguishes them from many other caches I've found. Some are not even close to as good as a lot of caches placed within the past year. Just my opinion of course, yours may vary.

[+budd-rdc]

I like finding older caches too and have a bookmark list of the ones that I've found from 2000 & 2001. I'm gonna go against the grain tho and say that other than their age nothing else much distinguishes them from many other caches I've found. Some are not even close to as good as a lot of caches placed within the past year. Just my opinion of course, yours may vary.

I think this is more a testament to who hid the cache instead of its age. A good example would be comparing the locations of the former oldest active cache in California (GC78) and the re-enabled one (GC5F).

 

Like others on this thread, I like visiting old caches, too.

[+NevaP]

I like old caches too and I plan to make an effort to find more of them.

 

I have logged two placed in 2000, Gorilla Stash which is the oldest cache in Arkansas and Melbourne's First which was the first cache placed in Victoria, Austalia. I think it is now the oldest regular cache still active down there.

 

I ran some pocket queries for old caches recently and discovered that the oldest active one in the USA, Mingo is in northwestern Kansas, an easy day's drive from me. There's another May 2000 one out there too. I think our annual summer trip to Colorado will be routed via Kansas this year.

 

NevaP, an old cacher who uses her real name.

[+Kiamichi Muskrat]

You've found some pretty old school caches yourself, NevaP.

I plan to make a run at Mingo sometime this summer. I also like TinMoon's suggestion of hunting archived caches. How many have you actually recovered this way?

[+Ed Rad]

I agree...

 

the older caches just seemed to have a little something that most newer caches don't. No need to go into that here.

 

I have been planning on reviving a few of the old archived caches in my area that I thought were good solid caches. All except one that I have chosen can be replaced in the same spot without interference from another cache.

[+Barnacle Bear]

Here's one in the Toledo, Ohio area, the oldest in Ohio. GC2DBE

 

Nothing all that exciting but a nice place to visit. Truly and oldie but a goodie.

[+Harry Dolphin]

Not the oldest that I've found,. but only eight finds in almost five years...

4quA5

[TinyMoon & The Pumpkin King]

We've hunted for maybe 20 archived caches so far (I'm guessing, we've never bothered to keep track) and only about 5 were DNF's. So far most have been archived caches by a since-retired cacher named Anton, he was one of the first cachers in our area and had close to 70 in the field when he "retired". As for logging Finds on archived caches, hmmm...we were able to log a few just before January, then after Jan. a message would pop up saying "This feature disabled on Archived Caches" so I gave up. But I just tried it again for giggles and it seems you can once again log or post onto archived caches! hmmmm...?

[+makaio]

Of course you can't log a "find" on archived caches anymore

 

Yes, you can.

 

We've got a few "old" caches under our belts, eh, Jon?

 

...back to lurk mode...

[+NevaP]

As for logging Finds on archived caches, hmmm...we were able to log a few just before January, then after Jan. a message would pop up saying "This feature disabled on Archived Caches" so I gave up. But I just tried it again for giggles and it seems you can once again log or post onto archived caches! hmmmm...?

 

Locationless caches were archived AND locked 01/01/2006. I just experimented a bit and it appears that archived regular caches will still take a log.

[+fishingfools]

my first hidden was approved by iryshe

[+ScoutingWV]

Slightly off topic, but in reference to The Jester's idea of doing an oldest caches challenge, the latest version of the guidelines pretty much eliminates the "email me for coords" option. If you're planning something like the DeLorme Challenges, better get with your local reviewer before you get a lot of effort into it.

 

Yep.

 

Trust me.