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Signature item ettiquette


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A business card showing your contact info and logo for a business is probably not appropriate as it does look like advertising/commercial. Many cachers make up a card for thier caching name alone.

 

I see A LOT of them in my area caches. I used to toss them when doing maintenance but now I am collecting them and all sig items just as a side hobby.

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That's up to you how much info you want to put out. But I see putting them in a cache as no worse a security risk than leaving them on a counter or such. Folks probably could get access to everything on card through other means anyway. I wouldn't worry too much.

 

BTW I made cards just for caching.

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It's your sig item and should say what you want it to about you. Do you trade fairly and take something of equal value from the cache?

If I found a cache full of yours I would certainly think you were using the cache to solicit business, but one card is different.

Don't you go caching to get away from work; I do?

I wouldn't leave mine as a sig item, but that's just me (and I've actually got a pretty cool business card and logo).

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Personally, for ME, I see business cards (or calling cards) as geo-junk. They are generally left in the cache until they are tattered, wet, nasty, and useless.

Now I'm sure there are those that take these cards out and keep them. And for those folks, excellent ! But when I think of a personal trade item, I think of a thing that has been personalized in some way. Some items I've seen:

* Clay mug made by cacher

* Wooden nickel stamped with custom ink stamp with cacher's name

* printed keychains

* hand-made jewelry

* fridge magnets

* pin-on buttons

* coins

* poker chips

* other clay or sculpy items made in cacher's favorite shape or design

 

Each of these was personalized in some way with the cacher's name -- either printed on it, engraved in it, etc. I personally have used a couple different things:

* Had a rubber stamp made with my insignia and caching name. I stamped the center of a wooden nickel with it. (cost: about $10 for the rubber stamp plus about 10 cents per wooden nickel)

* Had some laser-engraved LED flashlight keychains made with my userID on it (about $2.50 each)

* Am now having some custom-printed poker chips made up. (about $1.00 each)

 

The main difference between business or calling cards and any of these items is that these items have some sort of intrinsic value besides that of personalization. A calling card, while personal, is just a piece of paper. For anyone who collects and displays their caching trades (as I do) they probably would be more interested in something a little "nicer" that would look good on display.

 

Again, this is all my opinion. Take it for what you paid for it. :D

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For myself I purchased my own business cards, well they aren't really business cards, but more or less a geocaching card. It just had my slogan on it with my name and places for me to put when I found the cache and date I did and I leave it in there for the owner to collect if he likes. I also put swag in the cache, I don't consider my geocaching card actual swag. Picture below.

 

137243.jpg

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Our kids trade out cards and put them in a small photo album as mementos of the caches that we've found. I wanted something a little more substantial than a card to dispense though. I do have some cards that I printed with our computer and they are kinda neat but I like my sculpey things best.

 

I played with Sculpey clay to make some business card size flat tombstones. I used a stylus to put our username on it as 'the deceased' and the year, 2007. The first one went out when I snagged my FTF. The next guy, the usual FTF-er, seemed to be totally thrilled to find my little tombstone. I made molds for 4 different shaped tombstones for a consistent product. As ClayC recommended I will be signing and numbering them before I take them out with us. Regretfully I don't have any photographs for the little stones yet but I plan to take some. I'm pretty proud of how they turned out. :D

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Our kids trade out cards and put them in a small photo album as mementos of the caches that we've found. I wanted something a little more substantial than a card to dispense though. I do have some cards that I printed with our computer and they are kinda neat but I like my sculpey things best.

 

I played with Sculpey clay to make some business card size flat tombstones. I used a stylus to put our username on it as 'the deceased' and the year, 2007. The first one went out when I snagged my FTF. The next guy, the usual FTF-er, seemed to be totally thrilled to find my little tombstone. I made molds for 4 different shaped tombstones for a consistent product. As ClayC recommended I will be signing and numbering them before I take them out with us. Regretfully I don't have any photographs for the little stones yet but I plan to take some. I'm pretty proud of how they turned out. :D

Now that's cool. I want to find one now. :angry:

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I don't think a "business card" would be of much interest to anybody.

 

I have mixed feelings about geocaching cards. If I see one that I particularly like, I will collect it. We have been known to leave a card behind here and there.

 

Once, a cache was muggled and the only thing not taken was our card. I loved the picture that was left with the log of the person to find it...

 

c2b560e8-5954-4ffd-997d-a615e1b34777.jpg

 

I laugh every time I see that. :D

 

I love to find wooden nickels and hope before too long to have some of those to leave behind.

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Personally, for ME, I see business cards (or calling cards) as geo-junk. They are generally left in the cache until they are tattered, wet, nasty, and useless.

 

Hey, all of mine are laminated so they'll last and last (close to forever :D )

 

for the record and they are geo-cards not buisness cards :angry:

Edited by gh patriot
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I don't think a "business card" would be of much interest to anybody.

 

I have mixed feelings about geocaching cards. If I see one that I particularly like, I will collect it. We have been known to leave a card behind here and there.

 

Once, a cache was muggled and the only thing not taken was our card. I loved the picture that was left with the log of the person to find it...

 

c2b560e8-5954-4ffd-997d-a615e1b34777.jpg

 

I laugh every time I see that. :D

 

I love to find wooden nickels and hope before too long to have some of those to leave behind.

 

That is an awesome picture. :angry:

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:blink: I had some geocachin cards made up for the heck of it. Say my geoname and something like "Geocacher Extrordinaire" with my email addy incase someone wants to talk geocaching, and at the bottom the slogan "on the hunt for tupperware using billion dollar sattellites" or something like that.

 

Good times :blink:

Edited by AlBundy69
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I consider business cards to be solicitaton and therefore geo-trash. If they are left in one of my caches I remove them. Same thing with religious materials.

 

Geocaching cards are different and I don't have a problem with them.

 

Other's may have different opinions but that is mine.

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I have 3 different signature items. A standard biz card that identifies me as 'geocacher', a magnetic card that I put only in ammocans and a postcard that I write the name of the cache on and the date.

 

I put 1 sometimes 2 sig items into a cache but do not consider them swag. If I want something in the cache I will trade something of equal or higher value.

I was glad to put my card into a wet cache. My online log: Took out 3 Tablespoons water Left my card scratched my name in the soaked logbook. Took a picture of the cache if you really want to see it.

"Just Clowning Around" was the most physically demanding 5/5 cache I have ever done. It is about 5 miles downstream from where James Kim died 3 weeks later. Signature cards do have legitimate uses, just don't call them SWAG.

Tom Fuller

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This is an interesting topic. I too have been adding a little something to each cache we visit that I've wondered about. I leave a gift card for a small pizza at our pizza joint. It's completely free and I consider it swag with about a 10 dollar value. I only leave one per cache and sign, date and place the cache waypoint label on the back of the gift card. It's just a fun thing for me to see if any gift cards ever make it back and I feel that it is a nice swag item. I don't view it as advertisement, but someone else may. So, not sure if I'm crossing any lines, but my intensions are true enough.

 

In addition to the gift card we always leave our sig item (pictured below attached to a travel bug [our own travel bug]). We rarely do any trading but we are looking forward to snatching up any sig items we come across. Oh, another thing too, we avoid cleaning out a cache of sig items. On a couple of occasions, we've left some sig items just because it didn't feel right taking them all. There were three, we took one. Not sure what the protocal on that one is, but I would like to take them all if it is acceptable.

 

Here's the picture of our sig item along with "Crush" the travel bug.

Crush1.jpg

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We don't have a sig item yet, but we've been thinking about it. We will probably settle on wooden nickels, but only because I'm going to put my 10-year-old daughter to work making them! She's come up with a design that we like and if she creates them, then maybe she will be more likely to want to go with us to place them! (We often have to pull her out of the house when we head out as a family to find some caches!)

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Personally, for ME, I see business cards (or calling cards) as geo-junk. They are generally left in the cache until they are tattered, wet, nasty, and useless.

 

Hey, all of mine are laminated so they'll last and last (close to forever :rolleyes: )

 

for the record and they are geo-cards not buisness cards :rolleyes:

 

The laminating process immediately changes it from a standard business or calling card into a legitimate trade item in my eyes. Because you took the time to treat it right, it is not going to turn revert to it's pulp state in the bottom of a cache. It's also something that I'd consider trading for at that point.

The other distinction here is that yours is a Geocard -- not a business card. Yours was created specifically to tell others about your geocaching team and not your occupation. That makes a big difference, too.

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A business card in a cache is okay, but it's not swag. Signature items as swag are worth, in my opinion, exactly what they'd be worth as swag WITHOUT your signature on them. I mention this because I see penny items hand signed by cachers used as trade items for dollar items.

 

Embroidered patches mentioned above or the pewter (?) turtle figures of zonato have trade value whether they're sig items or not. More as sig items.

 

Geocards are nice (especially laminated) but they're only marginally swag. Local to me are a couple of cachers who drop either a wooden nickel or a laminated card into every cache. If they trade, they use regular trade items, the sig items are an added drop.

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A business card in a cache is okay, but it's not swag. Signature items as swag are worth, in my opinion, exactly what they'd be worth as swag WITHOUT your signature on them. I mention this because I see penny items hand signed by cachers used as trade items for dollar items.

 

Embroidered patches mentioned above or the pewter (?) turtle figures of zonato have trade value whether they're sig items or not. More as sig items.

 

Geocards are nice (especially laminated) but they're only marginally swag. Local to me are a couple of cachers who drop either a wooden nickel or a laminated card into every cache. If they trade, they use regular trade items, the sig items are an added drop.

I've never even thought of a sig item as swag. :):blink:

 

I leave my sig item. I might take a sig item. But I've never even thought of trading my sig for something.

 

I look at sig items as a track or calling card that's used to show you were there. I also see it as a gift to some other cachers that might collect them, as I do.

 

Swag is swag. Trade only swag for swag and trade even or better. That's my thought on that.

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For me, I make the personal item INTO the swag that I trade.

Mind you, I don't sign my name to a piece of junk. I make up something unique.

 

A couple of my personalized trade items were:

 

* Wooden nickel with my custom stamp on it. I then drilled a hole in the wooden nickel and put it on a carabiner/keychain that had a little compass on it. So it cost a total of about $2 each and was personalized.

 

* Laser engraved LED flashlight keychain. Cost about $2 - 2.50 each.

 

* I will be ordering custom-printed poker chips with a compass rose and my OuttaHand name on it. I designed the image; and the chips are high quality 11.5g poker chips that are custom dye-sub printed (not decals). They'll be hitting the caches in a couple months.

 

You're absolutely right about the people that simply sign a nickel item from a gumball machine and call it a signature item. that doesn't quite cut it And if you choose to drop a calling card into the cache, that's up to you. If not laminated, they will probably turn into pulp within a few months, though.

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