What d'ya put in there?

[+Totem Clan]

I'm planning a cache with a lot of camping/hiking gaer in it. I've heard of folks finding concert tickets, cash, all sorts of things. That makes me ask.....

 

 

What is best thing you have ever put in a cache as swag or an FTF prise?

 

 

So far for me it was either a Signal plush toy in this one or the $10 dollar gift certificate and coffee mug in this one.

[+bronzey214]

Well, I've been spring cleaning, so a lot of my recent swag has been books and stuff that I find around the house that I would normally pitch. Not like "2004 Macy's Catalog" but like... "500 Optical Illusions" and "Personality Tests for every Personality"

 

I've been thinking about leaving some of my college textbooks in there too, haha.

[bogleman]

A $90 micrometer and a little bit of love

[+JoGPS]

Left new GPS’r, took memories

[+bronzey214]

What kind of GPSr?

[+briansnat]

The last cache I hid had pretty nice Camelbak style (well it was Target's brand) hydration backpack for the FTF. It was too big for the cache so I wrapped it in a few layers of garbage bags, hid it about 150 feet away and put the coords in the logbook.

 

Also left a new Petzel Micro headlamp in a cache and right now I have 2 Platypus Big Zip II hydration systems waiting to go into caches.

 

I have also left a lot of collectible coins. Indian head pennies, buffalo nickels, mercury dimes, standing liberty quarters, Franklin, walking liberty and Kennedy halves and Eisenhower dollars. I never checked the value before putting them in caches. I hope I didn't give away my daughter's college education fund! Seriously most weren't in super condition so I doubt they were worth much, but I do keep thinking that I should have checked first.

 

I aslo found some really nice hiking pants on clearance at an LL Bean outlet. Regularly $49, but they were in the $4 rack. I picked up a few pairs of those, shrink wrapped them and put them in caches. Of course the FTF had to have a 33 inch waist and 32 inch inseam (or a really good tailor).

 

Probably the most expensive thing I've left was a automobile outside thermometer and road ice sensor/alarm. Received it as a gift but never used it. It was around $30 or $40 in a catalog I saw.

Edited March 10, 2007 by briansnat

[+KKTH3]

We got 3 crockpots for Christmas a few years ago. Put one of em in a cache large enough to hold it.

[+Vinny & Sue Team]

Sometimes, for some of our Psycho Urban caches -- particularly if the cache is quite a challenge -- we have offered a really nice FTF prize just to give the FTF finder a bit of an extra reward for their efforts. For example, I believe that we offered the following FTF prizes for these Psycho Urban caches when they were first published:

• a $10 bill and a new unactivated Signal theFrog geocoin in our Psycho Urban Cache #11 - Strange Island Getaway
  
• a $5 bill and a new unactivated Signal the Frog geocoin in our Psycho Urban Cache #12 -- Island of Debris & Dross
  
• $160 in cash, an unregistered Tracking Time geocoin, and an imprinted Psycho Urban Cache t-shirt as the FTF prize, and $20 in cash, an unregistered geocoin and an imprinted Psycho Urban Cache t-shirt as the 2TF prize for our Psycho Urban Cache #13 - Impossible -Give Up Now! . In fact, in light of the fact that Team Psycho snagged both the FTF and 2TF prizes, we subsequently created a "First to Find After Team Psycho" prize which was identical ($20 plus unregistered geocoin plus imprinted T-shirt) to the 2TF prize already mentioned. This latter prize has not yet been claimed!
  
• as an effort to boost the sagging spirits of a local team which had been contemplating tackling our above-mentioned PUC #13 in January and February of this year, I temporarily increased the cash portion of the "First to Find After Team Psycho" prize on that cache to $100, but the deadline for the offer of February 26 2007 passed without anyone claiming the bonus prize.
  
• $20 in cash plus an unregistered geocoin as the FTF prize for our Psycho Urban Cache #14 - Cliffside Catacombs.
  

Edited March 10, 2007 by Vinny & Sue Team

[+padlinfool]

Hand Made FTF swag.... Found by AVGraphics

 

[Clan Riffster]

I like the personal touch, so I take one of my custom camo'ed ammo cans and hide it nearby, with the coords as the FTF prize. When I don't have a second can handy, I'll leave foriegn silver coins. The swag I pack in my caches is just whatever neat stuff I can pick up at the Dollar Store, Target, Wally World, etc. $15/$20 to stuff an ammo can to the rim. My standard trade item is a handmade keychain made from a split ring, a leather thong and Alphabeads spelling out "GEOCACHING". I drop one in any cache I find, (if it will fit), regardless of what I take. I actually trade about 10% of the time, and just drop about 90%.

[+Renegade Knight]

Best:

FRMS/GRMS Radio, A FM Walkman, A Gameboy Color. I was going to use a large Lego model of the Starship Enterprise as a FTF prize but something else came up and I sent it to a kid who's having some downtime.

 

I almost always leave a Foreign coin (not worth much). I'm also not afraid to place an empty cache with nothing more than a log book. Boy do people complain when you do that. Those complaints are priceless.

[crtrue]

Hola the clam...quite possibly the most unusual thing I've ever left...a large shell filled with Plaster of Paris with a face etched in and plastic feet to boot...a very unusual gift...

[+ScaredOfBees]

A pocket watch with a picture of a polo player and horse on the lid, in "Ralph Lauren" (GC105ZV).

[+El Diablo]

I've left a few free certificates for one of my hiking staffs.

 

El Diablo

[+Kabuthunk]

A virtually identical handmade bracelet to this one:

 

http://www.zebeth.com/planetzebeth/stuff/c...l/bracelet.html

 

They got a longer, tapered-on-the-ends, handmade titanium chainmail bracelet. If one were to attempt to buy one like that in a store or at a faire or something, it'd probably cost about $50.

[+CENT5]

Best FTF Prize: a 2005 Silver Alaska Geocoin and a 3 day caching trip to Alaska

[+HappyHabanormal]

left a coupon for a free round of golf and dinner for two. no clue as to what it was worth but i dont golf. so it was cheap to me.

[+5KingCachers]

I was planning on starting up a micro series. I have 5 micro containers all cammoed up and waiting for me to decide on where to put them. As with all my caches I like to add a FTF Prize for them. Generally I have placed a "F" charm in my caches as a prize however with these caches they are just to small to hold anything but a log book. I was considering placing all 5 caches and for the prize it would be a $20.00 gift card to the first cacher to find all 5 caches and be the first to e-mail me.

 

What are your thoughts about this idea???

 

Thanks

4KingCachers

Edited March 10, 2007 by 4KingCachers

[+Mudfrog]

We put out a "bonus" cache that could be found only after finding two of ours and three other cacher's caches. This thing is out in the woods and involves 10+ miles of hiking. We wanted to make the trip worthwhile, not only for the adventure, but for the swag that the few finders who found it could get. We placed an older Garmin 40 GPSr, two Motorola FRS radios, Mapsource mapping software, 12 volt spotlight, and a few other smaller electronic items.

 

Another cache that we hid had a first finder's prize of an electric scooter.

 

And we have a newer one out that has several decent items that can be claimed when found. Portable TV set, GMRS/FRS radios, B&D electric tape measure, Brunton compass, Samsung digital camera, Brinkman LED flashlight, and a few gift certificates.

Edited March 11, 2007 by Mudfrog

[+DocDiTTo]

Best I've left was a FTF prize for a special hiking cache put out to honor our local reviewers. It was an unactivated 2005 USA geocoin, made out of pure silver. I think there were only 100 minted, I bought 3 and one ended up in the cache.