Is it becoming the norm to not release the actual coin?

[+whartonia]

Yesterday we came across a few new geocoins. Instead of the actual coin, a laminated version of the coin was attached to a Geocoin Buddy tag. I assumed it was so the owner didn't have to worry about the actual coin being stolen.

Edited March 25, 2009 by whartonia

[+fox-and-the-hound]

Gosh, I hope it's not going to be the norm. I wouldn't be surprised if it's heading that way though. Keep in mind that sometimes those laminated pseudo-coins are all that's left of a coin that went MIA or was flat out stolen. Browse around here a bit and you'll find quite a few threads discussing this phenomenon very quickly.

[+Jackalgirl]

Some people do do that, yes. Some people take a fair amount of time & trouble to make a good, solid-feeling proxy coin, and some people don't -- as Fox-and-the-Hound has pointed out, if you search this forum for the phrase "proxy coin", you'll see a lot of discussion of the topic (including instructions on ways to make quality proxies).

 

I would highly recommend, however, that you go to the coin's page on Geocaching.com. If it does not explicitly say something like "this is a proxy" or "this is a laminated copy", shoot the owner an email, let him/her know that you found a laminated copy, and ask if this is indeed what was meant to be found.

 

If not, it means a thief has stolen the coin and substituted a laminated copy. Were I the owner, I would immediately mark the coin as STOLEN in big ol' red letters on the coin page and explain that a thief had replaced the coin with a copy.

 

Edited: to clarify a point.

Edited March 25, 2009 by Jackalgirl

[+Droo]

In polite circles the coin owner is required to use the words PROXY or COPY in the coin's name if it's an intentional fake to prevent the theft of the original and still get to see it travel.

[+Butterfly_lady]

In polite circles the coin owner is required to use the words PROXY or COPY in the coin's name if it's an intentional fake to prevent the theft of the original and still get to see it travel.

 

Never saw that term used in the FAKE geocoin I moved last weekend.

So fake, that I didn't want to take it far.

As a re-distributor of trackables, it felt totally lightweight!

 

Oh, well, back now to activating the next lot of geocoins for this weekend's trip.

[+Brassine Family]

I was out caching today and saw that one of my caches contained a civil war geocoin. Since I haven't actually had a geocoin in hand, I was rather excited.

 

What I found was a generic poker chip with the code stamped on it.

 

While I was really disappointed on not being able to see the real thing, I do understand why the owner made a "proxy" but I really wish it was labeled as such in the coin title that shows up on the cache contents page.

 

But he did have it listed as a proxy on the coin's actual log page.

[+andyfee]

I found one which was a scanned image of the coin then laminated. The Item description did not show this, how ever on the laminate it said about it being a duplicate and the orginial will not be sent out.

 

Low and behold that coin did not move from that cache for a few months as people thought it was a signature Item.

 

I took the thing, and placed into a cache that would not normaly take coins of that side.

 

So there is an upide and a down side. The upsides coin won't go missing, also the plastic laminated one i seen, I was able to bend (Not fold) into a cache it normaly wound not go in. On the downside do people know this is a coin and take it?