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Inventive coin "copy" ideas?


Castle Mischief

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My wife gave me two geocoins (Landsharkz gecko and guitar) for X-Mas this year. I am loath to send them out into the wild for fear of them being snatched or lost. I want to hold them and love them and call them George. They are my precious coins and I don't want just any filthy hobbits-es tossing them into the fiery maw of a volcano/poorly placed ammo can under a lamp skirt.

 

I've seen laminated copies and large wood copies. What's the best durable all weather solution that you've seen that also somehow made up for the fact that you didn't get to put your grubby mitts on the real coin?

 

I'll be in the vault with my coins.

Edited by Castle Mischief
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I did an experiment on making quality proxies this past summer since I bought the supplies in lots I made ten I do have one left if you would like it PM me your address and I will send it to you, the problem with making a proxy that someone might find as interesting as a coin is the time and money involved. The proxy I made cost $6.00 and I was trying to keep it cheap. The time involved in making it represent the coin and be orginal in its own right costs even more as it is time lost that could have been spent say.... Caching The best advice I can think of is keep those coins in the vault take them out look at them and think about how sweet and loving your wife was to get them for you.

Then get online and buy some coins your willing to release and send them out will you lose some, yes I think I released eight this year and have lost two but have had a couple really travel, One that was lost was stolen from a car theft of the cacher that had it... Such is life things happen.

 

Life is short take risks release coins.

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I did an experiment on making quality proxies this past summer since I bought the supplies in lots I made ten I do have one left if you would like it PM me your address and I will send it to you...

 

I appreciate the offer and I'll send a PM shortly. Could you post pics or describe the process? I'd be even more interested to hear about what you did and how you did it.

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My wife gave me two geocoins (Landsharkz gecko and guitar) for X-Mas this year. I am loath to send them out into the wild for fear of them being snatched or lost. I want to hold them and love them and call them George. They are my precious coins and I don't want just any filthy hobbits-es tossing them into the fiery maw of a volcano/poorly placed ammo can under a lamp skirt.

 

I've seen laminated copies and large wood copies. What's the best durable all weather solution that you've seen that also somehow made up for the fact that you didn't get to put your grubby mitts on the real coin?

 

I'll be in the vault with my coins.

I do not know but you should have entered the "You know your a geocoun addict when..." cointest you would of won hands down ILMAO ;)

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One idea is to take a coin blank (you have to buy the blank and hopefully they are cheaper than the coin itself) and glue on a copy of the coin. Dip the entire thing in some kind of hard coating like epoxy.

 

It will look like the oringal, and have the 'gist' of the orginal without being the original. It would be close enough to where evne the ones who disdain finding proxy coins would at least recognize the orginal based on the copy if they saw one later.

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Never release anything you are not willing to lose.

 

Are people willing to accept a substitute is a different question.

 

I say there are no copies. Put something out there that helps people tell a story and interact with other cachers.

 

pfffftt icons.

Edited by BlueDeuce
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My signature "quote" below says it all. Release at your own risk. I have not released many coins or TB's, but all the coins are gone and all the TB's except one.

 

I do not go looking for a cache based on any coins that may be in it, and copies don't bother me. I have not released any copies myself, but that doesn't mean I won't in the future. I hope to be around and geocaching for a long time.

 

The nice thing about all this geocaching stuff - do as you want and don't worry about what others thinks. Buy some coins you won't miss and leave them in geocaches, but be courteous and list your copies as copies. Keep your precious coins for yourself.

 

Just my 2 cents worth.

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I have over 60 geocoins ciculating -- all of which are copies. I have gotten MANY compliments on how they look just like a real geocoin. They are not expensive to make.

 

Go to Home Depot or Lowes -- Buy 2 inch metal washers. They are somewhat the same weight as a real geocoin. I spray paint mine black. I also fill the hole with hardening clay that you bake. I go to Office Max (staples, office depot ) or anywhere else they make color copies. Buy full sheet label paper and give it to them, have them make a copy of both sides of the coin. Cut out the copies, and stick them onto the washer. Then you go to Air-tites.com and buy coin cases for a 2 inch coin. Put the washer inside, and WALLA, they look awesome.

 

Cost -- 25 cents for a washer, 65 cents for a case and about 28 cents for a color copy (but if you have a bunch of coins, they can put them all on the same sheet)

 

ANy questions, email me and I can help ya out!!!

 

Good Luck!

Edited by Team Fehling
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I also recommend shrinky-dinks (which can still be bought -- there's actually a kind that is made to use with ink-jet printers!). It can be tricky to get them to shrink correctly (that is, to not deform when they shrink), but they do look good.

 

I like the washer idea, though -- that is a cool idea! There are a variety of two-part epoxies out there that could also be used to fill the hole, though I don't see why Fimo, Sculpey, or any of the other polyclays wouldn't be fine.

 

I think I might just try your suggestion out, TF, thanks!

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Never release anything you are not willing to lose.

 

Are people willing to accept a substitute is a different question.

 

I say there are no copies. Put something out there that helps people tell a story and interact with other cachers.

 

pfffftt icons.

 

That's just it, I'm not willing to lose these two coins- but I am willing to lose a copy of them.

 

I also kind of like the new icons that show up on my profile when I find a new coin- or its copy. I know that it doesn't make me a better cacher, better looking, reverse male pattern baldness, or convince my kids that I'm cool. But I still like seeing them.

 

I'm trying to meet somewhere halfway between sending out my actual coins and putting packing tape on a Xerox copy and tossing it into a cache.

 

BTW, what's up with all the 0 mileage bugs in unknown locations in your profile? Did you activate them for educational purposes only?

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I did an experiment on making quality proxies this past summer since I bought the supplies in lots I made ten I do have one left if you would like it PM me your address and I will send it to you...

 

I appreciate the offer and I'll send a PM shortly. Could you post pics or describe the process? I'd be even more interested to hear about what you did and how you did it.

 

I will send it out later this week. I will not post any pics or explain the process While I spent more than the other methodes I was also able to say more with the proxy and do more than I could have with the original coin.

 

I am not in favor of proxies myself and this is just my personal opinion, you should do whatever you are comfortable with. The reason I am not so much in favor of them is that they track away from the spirit of the game itself. I believe geoCaching is based entirly on the concept of sharing. People share their time and resources putting out caches for others to find. While others share their resources putting out coins for us to discover and move. While other create trade and signiture items to be traded for. I am not opposed to proxies as long as they are creative and worth discovering but done cheaply I feel they take away from the sharing aspect of the game. Others may feel the Icon generated on their profile from a laminated piece of paper is all the sharing they require, I just find that approach to a proxy (to quote avroair) is Lame.

 

So if your going to release a proxy Make it fun and original while still being true to the original, and worth sharing, and it will be moved.

 

Thanks for sharing!

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I have over 60 geocoins ciculating -- all of which are copies. I have gotten MANY compliments on how they look just like a real geocoin. They are not expensive to make.

 

Go to Home Depot or Lowes -- Buy 2 inch metal washers. They are somewhat the same weight as a real geocoin. I spray paint mine black. I also fill the hole with hardening clay that you bake. I go to Office Max (staples, office depot ) or anywhere else they make color copies. Buy full sheet label paper and give it to them, have them make a copy of both sides of the coin. Cut out the copies, and stick them onto the washer. Then you go to Air-tites.com and buy coin cases for a 2 inch coin. Put the washer inside, and WALLA, they look awesome.

 

Cost -- 25 cents for a washer, 65 cents for a case and about 28 cents for a color copy (but if you have a bunch of coins, they can put them all on the same sheet)

 

ANy questions, email me and I can help ya out!!!

 

Good Luck!

 

You can do this even cheaper if you buy in small bulk packages from the link below. Print out two sides of a coin on cardstock paper and cut them out with scissors. Cut a little piece of the packing materials from the coinsafes delivery box and make a "air-tite sandwich". Top of safe, paper facing up, packing foam, paper facing down, bottom of safe and squeeze it all together. One crisp "pop" and you have a tough, shiny coin in full color that looks sweet and costs less than 50 cents (36 cents if you do larger bulk). The heavier paper gives it some heft without buying the extra washer. Of course you could buy the washers in bulk as well and only spend about 5 cents each on them :D

 

You can find cheap AirTite safes at http://www.jpscorner.com/AirTite_Direct_Fi...oin_Holders.htm

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Here is my idea,

BOTTLE CAPS ...

What I do is print out thumbnails of the coin on sticker paper, cut them out and stick them too the bottle cap. Then I spray with a clear acrylic coat. you can paint the tracking number on the back.

I put magnets on them and giving them out at events, but you can send it out to move along.

Scrapbookers have been using them for a while. You can buy colored caps on ebay!!!

 

Opalsns

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I've found a couple of "copies" painted on stones (available in bulk anyplace in your backyard that you need to dig a hole,) and sprayed with clear paint. Not to get off the subject, but have also seen personal swag with pictures of deer and bears on them...wish I could do that, but I got an f in art class.

 

ILYK
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Let me make another recommendation: if you send out a proxy or copy, make sure that you put that into the coin page's description -- make it really clear.

 

If you look through the Forum threads for other threads about proxies, you can see that it stirs up a lot of emotion. A lot of people will hunt a cache with the clear expectation that they will get to handle, examine, etc. a real coin, so get annoyed when they find that the "coin" is a xerox.

 

I imagine that this annoyance could be lessened a little if the copy were of really high quality -- OTOH, if you make it clear that the coin is a proxy in its page description, then people who aren't interested in proxies will know that it's a proxy (assuming that they look at the coin description, that is).

 

For what it's worth, I personally don't feel that sending out a proxy detracts from the game. The traveller belongs to the owner and it's up to the owner to decide how he or she will set it up to travel. I fully understand the reticence to send out actual coins, especially the expensive ones.

 

Having said that, however, I would much prefer to see a high-quality proxy than, say, a simple color copy. The "lame" factor, in my mind, is reduced by the amount of effort you put into the proxy in order to make it look good.

 

I really like this thread because the ideas are really good ones, and I think that the techniques we're describing are useful towards making really cool proxies. : )

 

Edited to add: I understand that sometimes, an unscrupulous person will make a crappy copy and replace the real traveller with it. Then, anti-proxy people get mad at the owner for not putting in the coin's description that the coin is a copy. So for the two coins I put out, I made sure the description said "this is a real coin, it is not a copy". That way, if someone tries the switcheroo on my coins, I'm more likely to get a note or an email from someone letting me know that the coin was switched and I can mark it as STOLEN with nice, big red letters.

 

Edited to add: Urp, Acadiahiker already said this, and a lot more succinctly too!

Edited by Jackalgirl
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