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Lost Geocoins


geohandyman team

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I think most TBs have more longevity than Geocoins, but it also depends on where they are released, and where they travel.

 

We have had a coin thief around here who has taken many, many coins. :cry: A coin I gave to someone to take to Europe is still traveling over there, as are some coins I took to Colorado. ;)

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TBs last longer is most cases as some people will steal coins for thier personal collection.

 

Although it's not always intentional. Unless the coin is clearly marked as a traveler, some people may think it's just a trade item and take it (never even trying to log it). OF course there are coin thieves who will steal them, too.

 

Don't let it discourage you though. The logs on coins are usually great as people really enjoy seeing them and moving them. The key is to make sure they are properly tagged as travelers, then hoping for the best.

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There are some truly beautiful coins out there and the temptation to keep them must be great. I have invested in generic geocoins and I think they are all still in motion. TBs are also a common item though I'm still thrilled to find them and enjoy passing them along. I did what I thought was something special and move someone's coin over 1000 miles thinking the distance would be a treat. The second visitor to the cache apparently took the coin and nothing has been heard of it since. Both the coin owner and I have emailed the alleged grabber but have never had a reply. The coin was special to the owner and I felt terribly guilty about aiding in its quick demise. I hope it surfaces soon. Unfortunately, this is the fate of many trackables.

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Although I'm sure there are exceptions, almost every coin I've come across has been stolen within a few hops after.

 

It makes me mad, even though I'm not the one who paid for the coin. There is one guy in my area who keeps buying and releasing these beautiful coins, and most of them last less than a month... I just can't understand why someone would do that, it seems like such a waste.

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My experience with coins has taken a complete reversal since a year ago, and not for the better.

 

When the coin craze started people would treat the owner with respect - if they found or were given an unactivated coin they could do with it as they wished, if it was activated it was expected to move, like a TB, and they did so quite nicely.

 

Now any coin I release or even move, activated or not, shortly disappears.

 

I used to take my collection to events and leave it on the table, walk away and go socialize... folks could log or trade at will. Now every time I do that coins disappear. I hate that.

 

I placed a coin cache, stocked it with 25 unactivated coins, told finders they could trade 1 for 1. Within weeks it was empty. I added 15 more coins, they were all gone in two weeks.

 

I placed a second coin cache in a different part of town, stocked it with 15 unactivated coins, it was emptied twice.

 

Both are archived and an expensive lesson learned. 70 coins stolen from two caches over 4 months. Bummer.

 

I have seen so much greed, inappropriate behavior and downright dishonesty among the community of geocachers, a group whom, for some silly reason, I held to a higher standard, that I am seriously considering quitting the coin game and getting rid of my collection.

 

It really has nothing to do with geocaching anyway.

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My experience with coins has taken a complete reversal since a year ago, and not for the better.

 

When the coin craze started people would treat the owner with respect - if they found or were given an unactivated coin they could do with it as they wished, if it was activated it was expected to move, like a TB, and they did so quite nicely.

 

Now any coin I release or even move, activated or not, shortly disappears.

 

I used to take my collection to events and leave it on the table, walk away and go socialize... folks could log or trade at will. Now every time I do that coins disappear. I hate that.

 

I placed a coin cache, stocked it with 25 unactivated coins, told finders they could trade 1 for 1. Within weeks it was empty. I added 15 more coins, they were all gone in two weeks.

 

I placed a second coin cache in a different part of town, stocked it with 15 unactivated coins, it was emptied twice.

 

Both are archived and an expensive lesson learned. 70 coins stolen from two caches over 4 months. Bummer.

 

I have seen so much greed, inappropriate behavior and downright dishonesty among the community of geocachers, a group whom, for some silly reason, I held to a higher standard, that I am seriously considering quitting the coin game and getting rid of my collection.

 

It really has nothing to do with geocaching anyway.

 

Man.. this makes me sad to read. It only takes some person to make or break a village unfortunately.All you gotta do is the math 70 x ___ = a lot less faith in geocachers as a whole.

 

I do see people getting away from coins and going to something that is a little less expensive and less collectible. The recent Pathtag thread is one good example. I've also seen people circulating photocopys of coins. If you are looking for longevity in a trackable, Travel bugs are probably your best bet.

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I think stolen Geocoins are the reason you see so many copies of coins traveling from cache to cache. I can’t say I blame the owners of wanting to keep the real coins in their possession. The cost of a geocoin usually is much more than a TB dog tag which makes the sting of a missing coin felt even more. I certainly do enjoy finding and passing along a cool geocoin, but I will also move along a copy as if it were the real thing.

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Here is the coin I found and got into the hands of someone taking it far, far away from our local coin thief. That person took three coins that had been entrusted to me when I retrieved them to put in another cache.

 

One was a Golden Octopus coin that had traveled thousands of miles. I felt really bad when it disappeared from a Puzzle cache I thought would be "safe." :cry:

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I have not done a %-missing calculation on my traveling coins recently, but the last time I did, it was around 14% loss rate. It's probably higher now - in that I know I had to mark several missing in the last month. Some do resurface months later and that's always nice, but sadly many go missing. The geocoins I launch have a hole drilled through them and a travel tag attached. So it's not like they're not clearly marked as travellers.

 

TAR that story about your coin caches is really sad. Were they members only caches?

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I don't have many geocoins travelling in the wild probably 12 or so, 3 went missing in 2006 and I marked them as lost/stolen. Recently 2 of the lost/stolen coins appeared out of nowhere both in the same week. One coin had been missing for over 6 months and the other 9 months. You never know when coins may pop up back in circulation. I'm planning on releasing a few more coins this Spring, and will be sure to drill a hole and tag them, something I've been reluctant to due in the past. One note, all of my coins travelling over in Europe are still going strong and tend to be moved from cache to cache once every week or two.

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Wow, kind of a depressing thread. While newer to the coin craze, I've been trying to release 1 or 2 a month here in Montana. So far nothing has come up missing but I know it's only a matter of time hence the reason for only sending 1 or 2 out a month.

 

On a more disappointing note, while not geocoins but special sig items that took me forever to make/package, out of 26 packages sent, about 10 wonderful cachers have either placed/logged/updated me on status. While I've heard nothing from others even after emailing them and this has stopped me from doing a world release on upcoming sig items :cry:

 

TAR....I hope you don't stop releasing coins but I can sure understand a major slow down.

 

Thumbs down to those who intentionally wreck the hobby for the rest of us.

 

Time to go color some Easter eggs ;)

 

tsun

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I think most TBs have more longevity than Geocoins, but it also depends on where they are released, and where they travel.

 

We have had a coin thief around here who has taken many, many coins. :cry: A coin I gave to someone to take to Europe is still traveling over there, as are some coins I took to Colorado. ;)

 

I have to admit that my coins that are traveling on the other side of the big pond are traveling better that those that are over here. Why is this?

 

I do believe that TB's travel better than the coins. However prior to the coin frenzy TB's did not fair as well it was the same problem. I think the reason for this is due to the complexity and designs of coins,they are more sought after and you get a special icon to go with.

 

I release coins on a regualr basis and I will continue to do so, however I take steps to make sure that it is clear they are meant to travel. I always drill holes in the coin ( even if there is a hole in the coin already I add another one to alter the coin) and attach a lock to the coin. I then laminate a card that describes the coin as a traveler.

 

This helps but does not eliminate the problem.

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Without a doubt, the temptation factor for absconding with a travel bug is far less than with a shiny geocoin.

 

All my travel bugs are still in action except for two: one was in a cache that got muggled and the other is still in action but the item I attached the tag to was replaced with something else.

 

I feel most comfortable releasing the common geocoins that have been produced in high numbers. The rare ones will always remain in my personal collection and are available for discovery. The rest of my geocoins (semi-common but not mass produced) may or may not get released, but I always know that they may eventually disappear.

 

I find that 99.9% of all geocachers are extremely honest. Of all my "missing coins", only one has been muggled for sure (the cache it was placed in got muggled) and most of the others have resurfaced after long periods of inactivity. Some cachers move trackable items from cache to cache without ever logging them. You've just got to put a little faith in your fellow cachers.

Edited by tom4props
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"I think the reason for this is due to the complexity and designs of coins,they are more sought after and you get a special icon to go with. "

 

But it still puzzles :) me to irkness as to why?!? The thief MUST know that they can't show the coin off I suppose that they still can get the cool icon though :)

Edited by fairyhoney
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My traveling coins are at about a 10% loss rate, which includes four geocoins that were picked up by a local and he still has them after months of emailing him asking him to just drop them into a local cache. I even met him and talked to him at a local unevent, which makes it even sadder.

 

I drill and tag all my traveling coins and like Damenace, even if it already has a hole in it, I'll drill another one. I'll eventually get to the 250 geocoins released that I've marked for traveling.

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I know i haven't had much luck with releasing coins.In fact every single coin i've released has been stolen.I think i had one exception where i knew the cachers moving it and ended up getting it back from them.I had second thoughts after i released it.So i felt lucky to retrieve it.

I also had one cacher not mentioning any names( kc8hnz opps!!!!!) drop my O.C.G. coin into one of his unpublished caches.After e-mailing him numerous times,i gave up.

I have to agree about travelbugs have a better success rate far as making it out here in the wild.

Like someone told me when i first started moving Travelers' (It's like buying a Lottery Ticket.Sometimes you win and sometimes you loose.)

Anymore,i just drop them into events.If someone wants to discover them there,that's cool if not there is no great loss.

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My loss rate for geocoins and TBs is close to similar. I have released over 200 coins now, and most of them are travelling pretty well. Every 3-4 months I e-mail people that have been holding them for over 2-months and check to see if those that are listed as being in caches are still there. After this month's check, I marked 2 or three more as missing. A loss rate of 10-25% a year is probably not too far off track.

 

I do find that geocoins make better travellers than conventional TBs. They tend to make more frequent jups than traditional TBs. Many of my coins have made it cross-country and even across oceans.

 

As with any TB, if you release a geocoin to the wild, you must do so with the expectation that it will eventually dissappear. But hopefully it will make many jumps, please a lot of geocachers along the way, and pick up cool stories and pictures in its log.

 

It's kind of cool to recognize names from the forums in the logs occasionally too.

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I have 40 coins out, 2 out of that 40 are marked missing. 4 have been in the hands of a local cacher since

1/28. Many emails and still no answer or dropping them in a cache. I like picking up and dropping coins and I know it's like the roll of the dice..but I to hold cachers to a high standard..Guess we all don't play the game the same.

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I did a quick check of my TBs and found the following:

 

TBs

14 released

4 missing

1 probably missing

3 moved in last 7 days (green shaded on profile)

 

Geocoins

202 released

34 missing

10-15 questionable (may not get back into circulation)

52 moved in last 7 days

 

To be fair, the average age of my TBs released is a bit longer than the average age of geocoins released (probably double).

 

Edited to correct numerical error.

Edited by tokencollector
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