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Mass Geocoin hostage taking in Spain


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I just had a quick look through and there are currently 140 coins in what is referred to as a Geocoin Bank, over 30 of them belong to Seping who is the cache owner and the majority of the rest were placed there by same person. It looks as though Seping has hunted down every Geocoin in his locale including the travel bug hotels like 'Monte Cuesta Blanca' to put them into a series cache he would like to be the best in the world. I believe a geobank is a place where people can grab just the icon if they wish hence the large number of discoveries however, it shouldn't stop the coins from continuing on their missions. The log is only going to show coins that are currently in the cache it won't show the coins taken out. Why not send Seping an email, he seems to have a pretty hectic lifestyle judging by his images and he has used English on some of his cache descriptions..

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I know the name of Seping: He held onto a rather special geoocoin belonging to me from August 08 through to December 08, just dipping it through many caches around western Europe. I got a bit tired of that activity and politely emailed him to ask if he would kindly leave it in a cache so that other cachers could find it and enjoy it...

 

He did so...

 

He placed into a cache in Florence and it was never seen again. :laughing:

 

MrsB

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Oo err ... Ignore me, don't email him!

 

Looking at the coin history this guy Seping has been carrying 17lb of geocoins around with him for the last four months. :laughing:

 

Seriously though, he seems to build a collection of coins and logs them in and out of caches until they eventually end up in the Spanish Federal Reserve or he places them in other caches, where apart from one or two, sorry to hear about yours Mrs B, they all continue happily on their missions. :rolleyes:

Edited by Handsyhands
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I have emailed the owner, who will try to move it on for me.

 

I am concerned about one cache holding £1000 worth of geocoins. If anything happens to it there are going to be a lot of upset people and it is a huge target for an unscrupulous person.

 

Once this is resolved I will update all my geocoin listings to say "No Geocoin Banks/Hotels" and "Discovered logs will be deleted. You must move this geocoin to log it.", as I see this to be the only way round this situation.

 

BTW, my coin was picked up from the UK by the owner.

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Oddly, the cache was published on 23rd March but there are a number of earlier "found it" logs on it.

 

As it's a puzzle cache (and looking at the pic on the cache page) I was thinking that maybe the cache is actually in the owner's own home?

 

We just need a good Spanish speaker to translate the whole cache page for us. :)

 

(Yes, I could do it with Babelfish, I know, but it's Saturday and I've got more exciting stuff to do today :ph34r: )

 

MrsB

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Oddly, the cache was published on 23rd March but there are a number of earlier "found it" logs on it.

 

As it's a puzzle cache (and looking at the pic on the cache page) I was thinking that maybe the cache is actually in the owner's own home?

 

We just need a good Spanish speaker to translate the whole cache page for us. :)

 

(Yes, I could do it with Babelfish, I know, but it's Saturday and I've got more exciting stuff to do today :ph34r: )

 

MrsB

As far as I can tell there's nothing on the cache page or in recent logs that gives any explanation. I think someone who reads Spanish better than I do needs to take a look at the (rather long) pdf file that contains full instructions. (There's a link to an Engliish version but it seems to be broken).

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Don't be certain they're all in there. Despite being a prolific cacher, it seems this person doesn't quite understand the difference between retrieve, grab and discover. I watch the TBs in the NWCaching '09 race and not too long ago got a mail saying one of the entrants had been taken from Lancashire to Barcelona by Seping but in actual fact it hadn't moved an inch. It was later retrieved just fine from the cache that this person had reportedly taken it from.

 

I don't know if this guy is just being a PITA and maliciously moving the recorded location of coins that they get the codes for, if they're just confused and have ended up with a load of coins wrongly listed as in their possession or if they are actually taking coins and holding them all but if you can, check the cache that your coins were last in - you might find it's still in there and just needs grabbing back and logs removing to get the record straight again.

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Oddly, the cache was published on 23rd March but there are a number of earlier "found it" logs on it.

 

As it's a puzzle cache (and looking at the pic on the cache page) I was thinking that maybe the cache is actually in the owner's own home?

 

We just need a good Spanish speaker to translate the whole cache page for us. :)

 

(Yes, I could do it with Babelfish, I know, but it's Saturday and I've got more exciting stuff to do today :ph34r: )

 

MrsB

 

Hopefully this link will work Translation of Cache Page

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As I said above, if we're going to get any more information then I think it'll be from the pdf file, but Babelfish won't translate pdf files (to the best of my knowledge)

You can, it's just a little convoluted. Google creates plain-text versions of PDF files as it indexes them. You can translate that document with any translation service.

 

Google translation of the Spanish PDF file

Not perfect English of course but relatively readable :ph34r:

 

(edit to add)

You'll need to refer to the original Spanish document in tandem with the translation because Google's HTML version of the PDF file doesn't include any images.

Edited by JeremyR
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As I said above, if we're going to get any more information then I think it'll be from the pdf file, but Babelfish won't translate pdf files (to the best of my knowledge)

You can, it's just a little convoluted. Google creates plain-text versions of PDF files as it indexes them. You can translate that document with any translation service.

 

Google translation of the Spanish PDF file

Not perfect English of course but relatively readable :ph34r:

 

(edit to add)

You'll need to refer to the original Spanish document in tandem with the translation because Google's HTML version of the PDF file doesn't include any images.

Thanks for that! :)

 

Unfortunately the document doesn't shed any light on the TB mystery. The only mention of TBs in the document is a mention under "Equipment needed" which says "Travel Bugs (optional)".

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Oddly, the cache was published on 23rd March but there are a number of earlier "found it" logs on it.

 

MrsB

Reading the translation of the pdf file, it sounds as if part of the series was originally set for an event and then either archived or temp disabled, and then brought back when the full series was set. That could possibly explain the earlier found logs.

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I find it strange that the people discovering these coins are happily jotting down the tracking numbers and logging finds for hundreds of coins which are obviously physically in the cache and yet don't read the missions - or - completely ignore them without thinking of picking them up and moving them along. Perhaps it would be easier to obtain a translation of the Geocaching.com guidlines 'two week rule' and put that in the coin :laughing: mission text.

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Seping had one of our geocoins. He was logging it in and out of several caches around southern Europe for a couple of months last year including some events. As we wanted to catch up with the coin a polite request was made for him to drop it into a cache, which he did, but too late for us as it was after we'd set off back home.

 

Not sure what his purpose is in hoarding these coins but I'd hope he would respond to a specific request from a coin owner.

 

Edited to add that I've just noticed that this fella has a TB Hotel at Girona Airport - this is possibly where he gets many of the bugs.

Edited by La Fifi
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Had a friend look at the instructions,

 

a few random translations.

 

p.2 soon after beginning this new hobby, the idea occurred to me to create a great series, the biggest in Spain, Europe & the world. On this it's been a little over a yr. we have begun hiding simple caches to gain practice, experience & valuation.

 

we have been gaining experience, & looking for national & international caches, learning from their owners.

 

today we present the fruit of our idea after more than a yr of prep. We hope that you enjoy looking for this series as much as we have enjoyed preparing & hiding it.

 

Cabrils is a small town of Maresme, province of Barcelona , pop 6,500 in 6 sq km.

 

we have hidden 10 caches for each 2 sq km. It's not difficult to get the calculations & yes, there are 60 in all...

 

well, perhaps more. There is no nano-cache. the smallest are nano-micro caches. all have a logbook for 200 entries. there are a few caches that don't have special interest for the zone they are hidden.

 

they are strategically located to indicate a little (clue?) the roads to folow to cross the different zones of the town. We are sure that you will also enjoy looking for them.

 

it is quite possible that you will be recorded or photographed at some time in the circuit.

 

 

Podium

the 1st 15 geocachers that complete the series will have a virtual gold cert. on the final chche page (1st 3 will have diamond, ruby, emerald)

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more..........

 

The series of 60 caches is divided into 45 traditional & 15 bonus

 

the traditional caches are divided into groups, normally of 4 caches that are sufficient to find a bonus level cache.

 

(level1) there are 10 bonus level 1 caches that can be found with the 45 traditionals. The 10 will give the coordinates to find the 4 bonus level 2.

 

And these in turn will give the coordinates to bonus level 3.

 

In trad. caches, there are always 2 things to keep in mind:

 

In each cache logbook there is a hint. You have to count how many there are total of each type for the traditionals. (There is only one hint for each cache.)

the number of times you find each symbol will give you the access codes.

 

There is a question to answer, normally pretty easy, that will give you some numbers that form part of the coordinates of a Bonus Level 1. as you will see later in the panel.

 

In the bonus caches, there are no hints but there is some other surprise.

 

The game can end even though some traditional or bonus level caches have disappeared, depending on your ability. If a bonus level 2 has disappeared, it's not possible

 

Stages: the game is divided into 3 chronological stages.

 

1- in this stage, the caches will be published without hints & Spoiler photos.

 

you can make photos & post them when we are in the 3rd stage. the duration of this 1st stage will expire the moment the first 40 teams complete the series.

 

2nd- in this stage the caches will be published with hints but without Spoiler photos.

 

3rd- this is the definitive stage. Caches will be published with hints & Spoiler photos. Now you can upload photos.

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The owner has apparently moved the geocoin for me.

 

I've just noticed that I've got a TB in a cache in Florida with 31 trackables in it.

If I ever visit a cache like this I will pick up every single trackable and move them on. I urge you to do the same.

These caches should be outlawed by Groundspeak.

I think that cache in Florida is rather different to the Spanish one. The logs show that TBs and coins aren't just sitting there for ever, people are exchanging them and moving them on.

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One of our geocoins recently ended up in Spain here. I noticed the coin had been discovered several times, but was never picked up, so took a look at the cache.

There are 130 geocoins in this cache and none of them are moving. :laughing:

 

If you know what is going on here I would love to know.

 

Just read this post and i also have a coin in this cache that seems to stay there with lots of people logging as discovered but is just stationery, Bit of a weird set up going on over there.

Ben. <_

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One of our geocoins recently ended up in Spain here. I noticed the coin had been discovered several times, but was never picked up, so took a look at the cache.

There are 130 geocoins in this cache and none of them are moving. :anibad:

 

If you know what is going on here I would love to know.

 

Just read this post and i also have a coin in this cache that seems to stay there with lots of people logging as discovered but is just stationery, Bit of a weird set up going on over there.

Ben. :laughing:

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The owner of this cache, Seping, is an experienced geocacher, seems to travel a lot and he understands English very well. As I mentioned in my earlier post, he did reply promptly to my email about my geocoin and moved it on into a cache... It was just my bad luck that the coin then disappeared.

 

It's worth contacting him and asking for your geocoin to be moved on into another "normal" cache just to see whether he responds positively.

 

MrsB

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Hello !

 

my english is not very good. so I hope, everybody can understand me...

 

I wrote a mail to seping and asket him, was is the matter with this cache.

Here is the answer :

Hola,

 

El cache Cabrils # 60 es un geocoin bank donde los geocachers que lo encuentran pueden intercambiar o solo descubrir las monedas de forma que otros geocachers también las puedan descubrir. En mi visita de ayer, saqué 20 geocoins y coloqué 9 de nuevas. Normalmente las dejo en el banco por un periodo de tiempo. Si nadie las intercambia, yo mismo las saco y las pongo en circulación de nuevo. De las 107 monedas que hay en el banco, la mayoría son de mi propiedad. Si desean que su geocoin no sea descubierta por otros geocacher en este caché, ruego me den el código de su moneda y en mi próxima visita la pondré en circulación de nuevo.

 

Un saludo Seping

 

and now translatet with a programm, is not so good, but i think we can see what´s on.. :

Hi,

 

The cache Cabrils geocoin # 60 is a bank where you geocachers

meet to exchange currencies or just find a way that

Other geocachers can also discover.

During my visit yesterday, I took 20 and put geocoins new 9. Usually

the left in the bank for a period of time. If nobody shares, I

the same bag and put into circulation again.

Of the 107 coins that are in the bank, most of my property.

If you want your geocoin not be discovered by others in this Geocache

cache, please give me the code for your currency on my next visit I will

in circulation again.

 

Un saludo

Seping

 

:laughing::unsure::blink::ph34r::lol::P:o:o:o:o:laughing::laughing::laughing:

 

Greetings from Germany,

 

Artissima

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The owner has apparently moved the geocoin for me.

 

I've just noticed that I've got a TB in a cache in Florida with 31 trackables in it.

If I ever visit a cache like this I will pick up every single trackable and move them on. I urge you to do the same.

These caches should be outlawed by Groundspeak.

 

I think caches like this one should be banned, I've only been caching since december 08 but have never come across anything like this!

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