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Swag Outlets


brianweeks

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Hello everyone; I am new to geocaching and have found ten caches in Hayward, California so far. I was wondering where would be good places to get items I can trade for things I find in caches. So far, I have found assorted small toys, geocaching and CITO collectibles, foreign coins, superballs (both whole and half) and a wide array of other items. Where do you all get this stuff? Thanks for any feedback you can give me.

---brianweeks. :grin:

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I get my swag at Wal-mart, Home Depot, Staples, Target's dollar section, Toys R US, the grocery store, the drug store, nearly anyplace. Whenever I'm shopping I just keep my eyes open for inexpensive things that might be useful to others.

 

One of my favorite items are the emergency ponchos sold at WalMart for 87 cents. I've probably bought a hundred and I bet nearly every geocacher in northern NJ has one by now.

 

My grocery store has a section for children's party favors. You can get a pack of a dozen Matchbox cars there for 6 bucks or 10 mini decks of playing cards for $3.

 

Another fave of mine are boxes of individually wrapped insect repellent wipes. If I see them on sale I can get a box of 10 wipes for a little over $2.

 

It's just a matter of always keeping your eyes open and if you see something, throw a handful into your shopping cart when your wife isn't looking.

Edited by briansnat
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Spring cleaning and junk drawers. You know what they say: "One man's junk is, well, soon to be another man's junk." I did go to a market in Mexico and bought maybe 10 small rubber chickens for under 5 bucks. Don't get swag in Europe though. The dollar sucks, although we did see a Euro-store (taken from the dollar store).

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Almost everything costs less than $2, and often less than $1. I only spend more on FTF prizes. Places where I've bought swag:

 

eBay - foreign currency (cost < 50 cents per note), US liberty and buffalo nickels, bulk army men, playing cards.

auto parts stores - mini cans of WD-40, telescoping inspection mirror, carabiners.

American Scientific Surplus online - plastic "rattlebacks".

dollar store - hand warmers, super balls.

makestickers.com - oval "FTF" bumper stickers.

swap meet/flea market - old baseball cards and comic books.

Home Depot - brass skeleton keys, mini sharpie markers, colored zip ties, rolls of duct tape.

Groundspeak.com - geocaching tattoos and stickers.

Oriental Trading - plastic lizards/snakes/spiders, dreidels.

drug stores - AA batteries.

Chinatown - mini plastic Buddhas ($1), marble eggs.

museum gift shop bargain bin - geodes, agate "slices", pewter charms.

coffee shops - gift cards.

Staples - mini G2 pens (multi-packs repackaged individually).

online magnet dealers - super strong magnets.

gas stations - lottery scratch tickets.

AC Moore craft store - multi colored pencils, plastic figurines, mini ziploc bags

Online geocaching suppliers - magnetic nano containers.

Grocery stores - hot wheels cars.

Edited by CacheNCarryMA
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i recently went to s&r department store and found some very very cheap clearence bins, i spent 5 cents or 10 cents on the items i bought, i got an entire grocery bag full of swag for only about $5!!! it consits of primarily neat little toys and things, as most of the caches in my area are kid friendly and it seems many logs state that a child joined in on the hunt!

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So far most of mine has come from my room.

 

Also Walgreens, and just ordered a bunch of pins, too.

 

But I've just started and will begin getting more swag, indeed.

 

Thrift Stores are an excelent place to check for things though, you can find cool weird nickynacks for cheap.

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I set out little envelopes with forgien coins, number 2 or 3 size enevolopes. Don't bother buying them on E-bay, they'll kill you with shipping. Call some of your local coin dealers, there is one near me who has a 5 gallon bucket full of junk forgein coins and he sells them to me for $6 a pound.

 

I put them in an aluminum foil pan, soak them in ammonia for 24 hours, rinse them off with some water, and they look shiny and new. Just make sure to set the pan outside because of the fumes and get an aluminum pan from the supermarket as the dirt that falls off the coins will stain the pan.

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A lot of Grocery stores and Drug stores have a "Dollar Days" or "Dollar Zone" section. I've found lots of keyring gizmos including keyring flashlights, and mini calculators there really cheap. Also, many thrift stores have a section of "Grab Bags" where they stick a bunch of small items in a plastic bag and price the whole bag instead of pricing each individual item. These tend to have a good variety, and are roughly categorized.

Edited by GClouse
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You can get some great stuff at garage sales/church rummage sales and places like that. Paperback novels that people sell at their garage sales for a quarter or fifty cents make great trade items that definitely provide more entertainment than the average McToy. Old costume jewelry can be nice too-- often very cheap at rummage sales, but still pretty and fun-- and small enough to stick in a tiny cache.

 

I like dollar stores too-- they often have surprisingly nice things! One near me has compasses and small flashlights, which make for useful trade items.

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It wasnt my original idea, in fact someone else on this forum had suggested this as a great swag item to place in caches.

 

I put a Groundspeak CITO trashbag, non latex glove and a small CITO logo all inside a 4 mil zip lock baggie for people to trade for. It can even travel from cache to cache until it gets to a trash ridden area that really needs some cleanup. CITO is a really great idea and including it as swag only continues to promote this very healthy aspect of Geocaching.

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A.C. Moorse (A crafts chain) has some cool stuff on sale right now 4/$3. Some of the things:

 

K-nex mini kits (I bought a few of these!)

mini fusing bead kits

mini puzzles

mini 3-D puzzles (animals, dinosaurs, etc)

 

CVS also has some nifty items occasionally in the 2 or 3 for a buck range. Almost always at the start of back-to-school season.

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