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Keep geocoins, or send them out travelling?


tonibunny

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Hi all,

 

I've recently bought a lovely little lot of geocoins, and I'd like to send them travelling but I scared of them being pinched.....so, I am pondering whether to hang onto them and just share them at caching events and meetings. That seems like a real shame though, and personally I adore finding coins in caches and will make a special trip to find a cache with a coin in it.

 

What are people's thoughts on this? Is coin theft a real problem? Does drilling holes in coins really act as a good deterrant to thieves? I'd be gutted if mine were stolen.

 

Thanks!

 

Toni

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What are people's thoughts on this? Is coin theft a real problem? Does drilling holes in coins really act as a good deterrant to thieves? I'd be gutted if mine were stolen.

 

 

Personally I like to see them out in the wild, at the moment I have 33 of my Wandering Geocoin - Malpas ### series out there of which you found 015 quite recently so know how I present them.

 

So far none to my knowledge have completely gone missing but some have been absent for 8 or 9 months and required some chasing.

 

Some are in very remote places like 008

which is in Diego Darcia B.I.O.T so is only accessible to military and support personnel.

 

My first coin currently in the hands of a cacher was recently the first coin placed in the first caches placed in Montenegro.

 

So they do have interesting and varied travels, will disappear at times but are certainly a way of knowing about places you would not otherwise.

 

Maybe I have been lucky in not losing any, I know others have suffered loss, I think the outlook you need to take is once released you have to think along the lines that you may never see them again you may have to right off the cost such that you do with your travel expenses to get to caches etc.

But at the end of the day if those that do survive give cachers some pleasure then you have achieved your goal.

 

Assess the risk and make your choice.

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Provided you make it clear in the coin wallet that it is not a swap I don't think coin napping is a major problem. I have 18 coins out and 16 TB's (with all of them having been released 18 months ago or more). To date 7 coins and 6 TB's have gone missing which is an almost identical percentage loss for each.

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I find that if you tag them to say that they are not to leave the UK, then they stand a much less chance of going missing!

 

I have about 25 trackables released (I've actually lost count) and I'e been very very lucky not to have lost any!

 

I tend to email people who've had them a while to nudge them...

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Some very good points have been brought out so far. I believe that geocoins are much safer in the UK than in the US where there is lots of geocoin thefts going on.

 

I think that quite often what appears to be a geocoin theft is simply a geocacher mistaking the geocoin for trade items. Newbies in particular are often unaware of what a TB is let alone a geocoin so the best advice has to be make sure that you label the bag the coin is in with a good message indicating what it is and that it isn't a general trade item.

 

As for drilling holes in them, I am against that as it totally ruins them, some would say it prevents theft - well that might be true for unscrupulous geocoin collectors but it still won't prevent a coin being swapped as swag.

 

I think the best advice is just clear labelling and state that you want the coin to stay in the UK.

 

Edited - I really do need to learn how to spell......

Edited by studlyone
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Thanks all :grin: I totally agree that it's nicest to send them out into the wild, so I'll be doing that....but I'll hang onto them to share at the London event at the beginning of next month, before I do. I really don't want to drill them, so I'll send them out in their wallets with clear instructions.

 

I was impressed with the packaging you sent your Malpas coin out in, Malpas Wanderer....I may try to do something similar :grin:

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I find that if you tag them to say that they are not to leave the UK, then they stand a much less chance of going missing!

 

There's always the exception :grin: . We have a Breast Cancer Geocoin which comes in the form of a ribbon with a ready made hole. It was labelled with one of our usual keyrings giving its mission as "To travel around the UK meeting as many cachers as possible." and placed in a small plastic bag. The coin turned up last week without its tag and bag in a cache in Arizona. I very much doubt that the tag just fell off ..... Fortunately it was found by a UK cacher and is now back over here waiting to go out again with a new tag.

 

MBF

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I picked up a 'geocoin' which had travelled from the USA. Only it wasn't the physical geocoin but a 'dummy'. The owner had made a plastic laminate from photos of each side of the actual geocoin and sent that on its way. As I'm still a newbie I thought it was strange but maybe this solves the problem of it being 'pinched'.

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I picked up a 'geocoin' which had travelled from the USA. Only it wasn't the physical geocoin but a 'dummy'. The owner had made a plastic laminate from photos of each side of the actual geocoin and sent that on its way. As I'm still a newbie I thought it was strange but maybe this solves the problem of it being 'pinched'.
I know that a few people send out 'dummy coins' and having found one myself I found them to be a terrible let down. I love finding geocoins in caches and will go out of my way to do a cache that I wouldn't normally do just because it has a geocoin in it. Imagine my surprise to find a laminated photocopy of the real coin.

 

I can understand why people do it but if they do then they should at least mention the fact on the coins webpage to avoid any confusion.

 

Ian

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