For Those Of You Who Place Geocoins In Caches

1k · August 4, 2006

What's the success rate of your geocoins actually staying in circulation? Do your coins disappear rapidly, or do they move from cache to cache?

August 4, 2006

While I don't have a scientific answer for your post, I am about to get some first hand experience with it. I turned loose 2 of my 2006 Emergency Response Geocoins in the Rolla Missouri area on August 2nd. It really bothers me that so many caches in that area show Geocoins, Jeep Travel Bugs or regular Travel Bugs, yet when I visited the caches, the items were gone but there was nothing in the cache page logs showing who took the items and/or when. I'm hoping that there is not a thief in the area but........"if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and you step in duck pooey, you might have a duck in the area". I did turn one loose in the Philadelphia PA area and it is still being logged. My releases in the Rolla Mo area are: Chrissy's Emergency Response Geocoin and Mark Twain Forest Emergency Response Geocoin I am watching them but........ Guess it is up to the local (Rolla) caching community to make sure they are watching their caches and as bad as I hate to say it, "watching" their fellow and local cachers. I think it might be time for all geocaching communities to clean up their area. Just my opionion and you know what they say about opinions. :sad:

9.8k · August 4, 2006

I have I think 60 activated coins released. Of the 57 released in the last year, so far 4 have gone missing for various reasons including, a muggled cache, never logged out of an event, muggle found cache signed log and took "keychain" (my coin), and just plain MIA.

1.3k · August 4, 2006

I think the only one that's missing of the one's I've released is one that was sent for the Geocoin Race. From what I remember the others are moving along nicely. Especially the ones I sent to Europe (thank you to those people across the pond who helped me with this!)

1.7k · August 4, 2006

We set 3 free as racers, a Mama's racer a DAda's racer and baby's racer...so far the baby's racer is the only one missing. So 1 in 3. I mostly leave coins for people to pick up and keep though it saves me all the stress!

2.1k · August 4, 2006

I have put out one UK, one Screw, one Kiwi, one London. I put holes in each of them apart from the London.

The UK has gone missing, the London is apparantly in a cache but hasn't been picked up after a couple of visits, so I suspect it's missing. The Screw and Kiwi have been moving.

My (old school) USA and German coins have been moving well for a long time.

August 4, 2006

I've probably got about 18-20 coins travelling, 3-4 have apparently gone missing for some reason or another, every now and then one that appears to be missing will show up somewhere. Usually it's from someone who picks it up while on vacation and doesn't have a chance to log it until they get home. For the most part they are going good, especially the ones overseas, those seem to move at least 3-4 times a week each.

August 4, 2006

I have about 15 out traveling. I think 2 have gone missing. One that was in the Premier coin race went missing in May from a cache in Mexico, but was just logged two days ago as being picked up by a cacher in WA state. New cacher which makes me a little nervous, but happy it is in the land of the living. So overall a pretty good success rate.

But I have also left several dozen un activated coins in caches over the past couple of months. People seem to be pretty good about sharing the wealth on them.

8.1k · August 4, 2006

I have 24 coins released into caches. One went missing and with a polite email reminder started moving again. One was never logged out of an event. And 4 got lost while they were being mailed (together).

So my loss factor is 8% if you don't count the mailed ones. :sad: A couple of mine have been going for 2 years now. I think being a good shepard and sometimes a detective keeps them on track.

1.6k · August 4, 2006

I had just started putting out a few coins and within the first two weeks, both ended up in the same cache (Geobank) and within a few days, and were taken by a "LAME DUCK"........ :sad: Luckily, I had traded one of mine for a GeoWoodstock III out of that cache a few days before the "DUCK" passed. The GeoWoodstock III is doing well and still travelling.

I'll start putting out some more, but not in the same area. Hope they last a bit longer.

August 4, 2006

We have a *lot* (over 100) of the Canadian Geocoins that are trackable on their website, as well as about 50 of a local (Conejo Cachers: Ventura County, CA) coin which is likewise trackable only on the group's website. Many of these are still out there, slowly moving around, but many have vanished: So It Goes. A number of them have been kept by cachers; we know because they asked, and we gave permission

As for geocoins trackable at GC, to the best of my knowledge, every one of the ones that we have released (a couple of dozen, so far) is still moving. It's a rare day that we don't get at least one e-mail about a coin of ours being picked up or dropped off, or at least discovered. We know of a few coins that are still logged into a local event cache, but we know who has them, and she is notorious for not logging her finds for weeks , so we aren't worried.

I understand the concern expressed about newbies picking up coins and Bugs, but we were all newbies, once, hard as that might be to remember :sad: We try not to worry too much when that sort of thing happens; we just hope that whoever-it-is has done their homework. To be honest, we've lost two travelers One was a T-Bug that never made it home, apparently. The other was a coin that I know is in the house, somewhere - it has to be!! - and if I ever find it, Tom, it'll go out into the first cache we find!! Fortunately, the owner has been very understanding about it, but I still feel terrible

August 4, 2006

I've release 39 coins sofar. Just one went missing. :sad:

The coins are travelling primarily in the Netherlands, but I do have a couple travelling the US and the rest of Europe as well.

2.3k · August 4, 2006

So far its worked out great for us we have set 11 free and still have 11 traveling. But I know that I will loose some over time its part of the game.

4.2k · August 4, 2006

I believe out of 12 coins that I have out right now, 10 are still moving and live. I've "lost" 2, but I fully expect to lose a few.

1k · August 4, 2006

We've released 12, 3 are MIA. for afew months another was MIA before someone reported finding it in a cache. 1 of the mia was in a muggled cache.

I moved all 3 into 'unknown location' so that it wouldn't mess with the caches they were last reported in.

For the caches you see TBs and Coins listed in but that they aren't there (and obviously haven't been there for awhile) let the owners know. Either the cache owner or the TB/coin owner can move them to 'unknown location' so it doesn't show in the cache inventory anymore.

2k · August 4, 2006

Great .... everyone ELSES coins seem to fair better than mine. I have placed many in caches, but many were intended to be kept as prizes/trades (non-trackable and unactivated).

So here's the breakdown:

73 coins released as travellers

8 outright stolen

5 passed along at an event and never heard from again

4 in the hands of cachers with no activity in over 90 days

5 in caches with no activity in 90 days (although caches HAVE been visited -- except 2 nasty ones)

3 currently sitting in events that are long gone

So I am at about a 30% loss rate.

I stated this before, and I hate to say it, but Europeans seem to move coins and travel bugs a little better than us North Americans. (from my limited experience)

Edited August 4, 2006 by Lemon Fresh Dog

1k · August 4, 2006

I have about 15 out traveling. I think 2 have gone missing. One that was in the Premier coin race went missing in May from a cache in Mexico, but was just logged two days ago as being picked up by a cacher in WA state. New cacher which makes me a little nervous, but happy it is in the land of the living. So overall a pretty good success rate.

But I have also left several dozen un activated coins in caches over the past couple of months. People seem to be pretty good about sharing the wealth on them.

Geez, you live north of me, but if I ever get up that area, I'd love to find an unactivated coin, just go give it some history and a nice goal. A friend of mine says that most geocoins cost approximately the same as a travel bug once you factor in the cost of whatever you're attaching to your travel bug, so that's my thought process on this. I have one more travel bug and am seriously thinking about releasing some of my geocoins into the wild next.

4.2k · August 4, 2006

Yup, there's lots of folks "up here" that leave unactivated coins in caches.

I don't have stats on the ones I've left as they are usually snatched up by the next person - as they were intended to be.

August 5, 2006

What's the success rate of your geocoins actually staying in circulation? Do your coins disappear rapidly, or do they move from cache to cache?

I have four coins out there. Three are circulating nicely, and the other one 'was' but was picked up by somebody five weeks ago who appears to have stopped caching shortly thereafter. I just emailed them asking nicely for them to drop the coin in a cache, mail it to me, or give it to another cacher to get moving along. Crossing my fingers...

One thing I did for all of them was to drill holes in them and attach tags, 'hopefully' to deface them just enough that they'd be less likely to get plundered for somebody's display box or collection. Don't know if it actually made a difference or not, but it seems to have helped ok so far.

Edited August 5, 2006 by vds

1k · August 5, 2006

One thing I did for all of them was to drill holes in them and attach tags, 'hopefully' to deface them just enough that they'd be less likely to get plundered for somebody's display box or collection. Don't know if it actually made a difference or not, but it seems to have helped ok so far.

Just getting into geocoins and planned to release them and maby leave some out as first to find prizes. Anyway was considering the drilling option for those released as travellers. Would be interested in others experience as to how this idea has gone so far. Do we think it reduces the theft rate?

Regards

Andrew

August 5, 2006

One thing I did for all of them was to drill holes in them and attach tags, 'hopefully' to deface them just enough that they'd be less likely to get plundered for somebody's display box or collection. Don't know if it actually made a difference or not, but it seems to have helped ok so far.

Just getting into geocoins and planned to release them and maby leave some out as first to find prizes. Anyway was considering the drilling option for those released as travellers. Would be interested in others experience as to how this idea has gone so far. Do we think it reduces the theft rate?

To be honest, I hate this idea Oh, I don't argue with those who like it; it makes sense to do it. I just can't bring myself to actually drilling a hole in a nice piece of decorated metal We are definitely not inclined at all to keep a coin that we find - I'm happy picking up and moving coins along, collecting icons as we go - but seeing a hole in a coin certainly strengthens our natural predilection. I wonder, though, about those who would steal a coin; I'm not so sure that a hole will stop them if they are that larcenous.

What we do is print out a little tag that asks that the finder keep the coin moving. Every coin we send out goes in a bag of some sort and the tag goes with it. So far, it's working Someone else came up with the PDF file for the tag, and they posted it in a thread in this forum; can't find it now, but it's in here, somewhere.

One thing we did with our Generic Geocoins, which come with a hole (it was designed that way) is to put a Travel Bug Buddy on them. These come from Geoswag.com, the same place from where we bought the coins; they are *not* T-Bug tags, and have no number, just a little note asking that the thing be kept moving. If you buy ten or move, they're a buck-and-a-half each, which is pretty cheap.

August 5, 2006

We have about 10 of them out there.

So far ,2 stolen(1 had gone all around Iraq with over 15,000 miles,made it back and was stolen 10 miles from home,dadgum!)

2 way overdue

The rest are fine.(We think, LOL!)

A couple have been moving about for 2 years

LATER!

August 5, 2006

We have about 10 of them out there.

So far ,2 stolen(1 had gone all around Iraq with over 15,000 miles,made it back and was stolen 10 miles from home,dadgum!)

2 way overdue

The rest are fine.(We think, LOL!)

A couple have been moving about for 2 years

LATER!

Now THAT was moderating!!LOL!!

1.2k · August 6, 2006

On our last two trips up north, we left about 20 unactivated, and 20 activated of our Found It coin, DNF coin and some GBA coins. We have tracked the locations where they were dropped off ,and can usually tell when there are several finds after us, but no mention of the coin.

Some coins though are very busy and have been traveling all over eastern part of Washington.

August 6, 2006

I have about 50 out, some since 2003, I think maybe ten are still moving. Some have thousands of miles, some we stolen by the first person to find them. Glen

2.3k · August 6, 2006

Rattling Crew: Were these coins all loose, or drilled and tagged?

I have released 5 California coins, which are tracked on their own site. They were loose coins, now gone.

I released one California tag, drilled with a Travel Bug tag attached and it is doing fine.

I have drilled and tagged 4 other trackable coins, two released and doing OK, One sitting in one of my caches, and another to be released.

So, is drilling and tagging the answer?

1.2k · August 6, 2006

Someone else came up with the PDF file for the tag, and they posted it in a thread in this forum; can't find it now, but it's in here, somewhere.

Greets, Think GeoSquid posted this traveler paper for Geocoins, I have uploaded it to my server for anyone who wishes to DL it :anibad:

For state-side use, beware, I had inserted it into a coin to travel out of Florida, a cacher placed it in a cache up north for me, and due to the differant languages on the insert, someone picked up my coin thinking it was from another country and brought it right back to Florida :laughing: now sitting in Orlando area waiting to be released into a cache to continue its goal. It was never logged in FL so I guess its doing what was intended, to travel to differant states :anicute:

I have 2 coins in the US so far ok

4 in Australia, so far ok

1 in Germany so far ok

And a few more in the mail headed overseas.

With some of the posts here, I can only sit back and wish my coins well. and still planning on more released in my area, I can't bring myself to drill a hole in the coins, I just have hopes people will respect my travelers if they go missing so be it.

Here is the PDF file, Glenn

PDF KEEP ME ON THE MOVE

2.3k · August 7, 2006

I have been thinking of something else.

Is it OK to attach a coin to the inside of one of your caches and ask people to just "Discover" it. It will show the icon in the cache permanently. Has anyone done this?

1k · August 7, 2006

I have been thinking of something else.

Is it OK to attach a coin to the inside of one of your caches and ask people to just "Discover" it. It will show the icon in the cache permanently. Has anyone done this?

Depending upon your area, if it's offered that way, people might like that, but I can see where other areas, the coin might still disappear. :laughing:

August 7, 2006

We've released 12, 3 are MIA... I moved all 3 into 'unknown location' so that it wouldn't mess with the caches they were last reported in... Either the cache owner or the TB/coin owner can move them to 'unknown location' so it doesn't show in the cache inventory anymore.

Another option is to take them back into your own inventory, and then put them into one of the several "TB Graveyards" that are out there. We've never had to bury a geocoin, yet, but we've buried several TBs; we've seen others put coins in them. At least this way they are "someplace".

August 9, 2006

It sounds like most of you have had much better luck than I have. I have just started getting into coins and put three of them out there, and only one of the three has had any luck. One is MIA and another got picked up by a new cacher who hasn't had any activity in over a month. I was really disappointed and it seems that the general consensus in my area is that one should not put coins in caches because they disappear. Maybe there is just one coin theif going around the area, I don't know, but I love the travel bugs and I thought the coins would be really fun as well. What my idea is now is to only put out the coins that cost under a certain amount, and also to buy two whenever I get coins, one to keep and one to put out there. I have found only one other coin and picked it up and am currently working on getting it towards its goal.

August 9, 2006

Sometimes it's just bad luck, but a lot of it has to do with where one lives. Not the area, as such, but the other cachers in it. Living in SoCal as we do, and in Ventura County, in particular, we have a lot of other cachers nearby. We all kind of look out for each other. We try to educate the newbies about things like travelers and bushwhacking and such. It's easier to do that here, where the number of cachers is very high. A bad egg is smelled by lots of other cachers, and it can't hide very easily. Even where we have disagreements about other things, we don't mess with another cachers Bugs and coins. There's one local cacher with whom I've had a long-running dispute that has gotten nasty at times. But I'd trust him with one of my geocoins, and I think he knows that he could trust me with his. That would *definitely* be going over the line, to mess with another cacher's travelers just because you don't like him. Certainly there are thieves out here, but they don't escape for long. People figure out who it is, and they get ostracized, and then they find some other game to screw up. I hope that those who do have problem cachers in their area can figure out who it is, and can straighten them out. Lots of times, it really is just a lack of knowledge, rather than a deliberate feloniousness.

1k · August 9, 2006

I would also like to note that 2 of my travellers I released less than 3 months ago have each travelled over 10k miles! One is part of a race, the other is just a regular traveller.

http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=368894

http://www.geocaching.com/track/details.aspx?id=362311

August 16, 2006

I have 20 coins. Several have been reported missing but they have all been returned, so far. I too asked the probability of them going missing and was told that eventually they all will. There are a lot of collectors out there but there's pride in ownership, not taking coins .

If you only have a couple of coins you will focus all your attention on them and if one goes missing you will get upset/disappointed. Get lots of coins, if one goes missing it's not such a big deal.

Putting your coins in caches is much like loaning items out, if you want it to return to you the way you leaned it, don't loan it out. If you want to keep your coins, don't put them in caches, or, do as I do and always buy duplicates and keep one for yourself and turn the others loose.

Edited August 16, 2006 by Micra Man

2k · August 16, 2006

I have been thinking of something else.

Is it OK to attach a coin to the inside of one of your caches and ask people to just "Discover" it. It will show the icon in the cache permanently. Has anyone done this?

Sort of. Check out my "Lemon Fresh Dog's Coin Cache and Post Office" cache. It was good for about 9 months.

August 24, 2006

Someone else came up with the PDF file for the tag, and they posted it in a thread in this forum; can't find it now, but it's in here, somewhere.

Greets, Think GeoSquid posted this traveler paper for Geocoins, I have uploaded it to my server for anyone who wishes to DL it...

PDF KEEP ME ON THE MOVE

Bumping this topic, because this PDF file should get as much publicity as possible. Not everyone will use it, but those who don't like the idea of drilling a hole in their coins might like it. As long as your have Adobe Reader on your computer, clicking the link will work Thanks to GlennK for finding it and adding it to his server!

August 24, 2006

31 released into caches over the past year or so.

2 gone/muggled/missing/out of circulation.

8 are in the hands of cachers.

21 are in caches.

12 more in my cache bag waiting to be dropped into caches.

August 24, 2006

I have realeased 170 coins in caches.

11 of them has been dissapeared.

August 24, 2006

I have realsed about 15 coins and 7 have diappeared. Almost 50%. Not a good success rate for me. I think if I scratched them up and marked them, I probably would still have them out there.

Ziggy Crew

August 24, 2006

I have released 4 and lost one just recently due to a muggled cache. I have been laminating tags and attaching them to the plastic coin holder. You can see an example below. I have 2 more about ready to go.

2.3k · August 29, 2006

So far its worked out great for us we have set 11 free and still have 11 traveling. But I know that I will loose some over time its part of the game.

Well that went sour fast we now have about 13 sent out and at last count have about 3 missing. It looks like we are going to start drilling ours I have a real bad habbit of sending HTF coins in the wild.

1.5k · August 29, 2006

All of ours now are drilled and the only coins that have gone missing have gone missing with the entire cache, so I don't really count that specific to the coin. Drilling the coin, using airline cable and connecting with a laminated tag seems to be helping. Course there will always be those bad people...

1.3k · August 29, 2006

I have released 4 and lost one just recently due to a muggled cache. I have been laminating tags and attaching them to the plastic coin holder. You can see an example below. I have 2 more about ready to go.

Why not loop the chain through the hole in the coin there.

That's what it was designed for.

At the present time, I've only got 5 geocoin travelers, and all 5 have been doing OK. Not much mileage on two recently released, but the others seem to be doing OK.

I too have noticed that European cachers tend to move TBs pretty well.

I've released 3 travel bugs, one was specifically taken to the UK for me by a cacher that was going on vacation. The_American_Tourist

It regularly gets picked up and I am getting good feedback from it. Although it hasn't been placed in a cache since the first of the month, the cacher that has it hasn't cached since then either Hopefully they are just busy with life and it will get back out in action before long.

Of my other 2, one has moved really well and the other seems to be AWOL with a student cacher in Atlanta that doesn't reply to emails. He picked it up from a cache in June 05. His last find was Nov 05 and he hasn't even visited the site since Jan 06.

Guess I can pretty much mark this one GONE!

D-man :lol:

August 30, 2006

I only have about 10 coins out travelling with one missing in action. Oddly, the MIA is the first one sent out, a USA geocoin that I laminated into a sheet of plastic. Two of the coins move quite well, probably because of the different icons, and the others move about once a week or so. Keepings fingers crossed, but it seems that the coins don't disappear near as much as the horror stories I've read.

August 30, 2006

I have released 4 and lost one just recently due to a muggled cache. I have been laminating tags and attaching them to the plastic coin holder. You can see an example below. I have 2 more about ready to go.

Why not loop the chain through the hole in the coin there.

That's what it was designed for.

Most of the other coins didn't have holes so I just kept with my usual setup. I figured the plastic would help protect the coins.

Jynxd

1.1k · August 30, 2006

I have been thinking of something else.

Is it OK to attach a coin to the inside of one of your caches and ask people to just "Discover" it. It will show the icon in the cache permanently. Has anyone done this?

yes the two anthus decoder caches, and the cache detectives maths challenge i know of stateside are set like this - the coin stays put in part of a multi - i'm planning another like this soon

the cerebral codex cache has coins that stay put in side it

and i've done museum style caches a bit like kswader's. ironically first was a cache that couldn't be listed on GC as it is too close to others so it is archived -coins and all but they are there in the cache - should i tell where :unsure: And are a special themed glow in the dark group- i have two themed caches the other is full of puzzle coins arranged in a special 'book' each coin is in the sleeve of a photo album and has a page telling all about each coin and then you can use some of them to hunt other puzzle caches i've set.

and I'm dropping a travelling viking which isn't trackable into a moving cache attached to TB tag which is passed around australia mostly hand to hand filling up with sig items.

Actually it's abit of a responsibility moving coins tbs and some people down here just prefer to look and leave. We like to take our little visitors home and show them around a bit mostly because we find the general contents of caches a bit boring after 140+

Edited August 30, 2006 by forthferalz

2.3k · September 6, 2006

Just released a 3-pack of coins, each with its own icons. I used 1/16" steel cable with aluminum ends crimped, and dipped in epoxy. Instructions attached ask that people log all three if they want to take it, and place it in another cache, no holding for others to discover. We will see how long it lives.

September 6, 2006

We had a Coin Collection cache in our area STOLEN this week. There were 10-12 coins in that cache ; they were replaced with pennies! Ugh!

There were as many DNFs as Finds on this new 4-stage multi, so I doubt it was due to muggles.

This has got to be heartbreaking to the cache owner as well as the coin owners.

I suppose it may have been a bad idea to put so many eggs into that one basket. Though, I enjoyed finding that cache and discovering those coins. I had planned to revisit periodically to swap coins in and out.

September 6, 2006

We had a Coin Collection cache in our area STOLEN this week. There were 10-12 coins in that cache ; they were replaced with pennies! Ugh!

There were as many DNFs as Finds on this new 4-stage multi, so I doubt it was due to muggles.

This has got to be heartbreaking to the cache owner as well as the coin owners.

I suppose it may have been a bad idea to put so many eggs into that one basket. Though, I enjoyed finding that cache and discovering those coins. I had planned to revisit periodically to swap coins in and out.

Yes, it was heartbreaking.

I don't expect all of my coins to stay in play (things get lost, misplaced, muggled, etc) but it bothers me to lose one in this manner (assuming it really was a thief and not a muggle).

tony

22k · September 6, 2006

IF YOU DO NOT have a GEOcoin please only take note of the code numbers and “DISCOVER”, BUT LEAVE the coins in the cache. I WOULD LIKE TO MAINTAIN A MINIMUM OF 5 GEOCOINS, so please do not just take any coins.

Sounds like a prison gone bad to me. And the owner was harvesting coins for the cache.

I especially like the one coin owner who stated that whoever took their coin to an event had to be the one to log it back out, so it wouldn't get lost. They must not have known about prisons.

Too bad, if they were travel bugs at least at some point they could re-release them.

Oh wait, I didn't see that "Please don't steal coins" instructions. I guess that should have taken care of any problems. Not sure why it didn't.

I hope the owner reopens the cache and starts collecting more coins and stacking them in the cache. That's what coins are for, right?

Edited September 6, 2006 by BlueDeuce

For Those Of You Who Place Geocoins In Caches

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