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What are some good items to put in a geocache?


brandiwos

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Before I started caching on my own (my uncle got me started back in the day, just coming back to it recently) I always put little plastic snakes in the caches we found. Today I only got one that wasn't a micro, i took a little plastic whale toy out of it and left a Spanish paratrooper military patch in it's place. So you know, basically anything fun and/or interesting.

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Anything that is inexpensive and useful. One of my favorite things to leave now are individual packets of Off! insect repellent wipes. I get a few boxes of them when they go on sale and will leave a packet or two in caches.

 

Judging from some of the logs they are much appreciated.

 

Another favorite of mine to leave in the winter are the chemical hand warmers. I buy a few boxes and they come out to under a buck a pair.

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Anything that is inexpensive and useful. One of my favorite things to leave now are individual packets of Off! insect repellent wipes. I get a few boxes of them when they go on sale and will leave a packet or two in caches.

 

Judging from some of the logs they are much appreciated.

 

Another favorite of mine to leave in the winter are the chemical hand warmers. I buy a few boxes and they come out to under a buck a pair.

 

I found a pair of the hand warmers in a recent cache, and it was somewhere around 20 degrees F out that day. I really thought about using them, but had some good gloves so left them for the next person. Thought it was a great idea and will drop those in mine when I start placing caches.

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Anything that is inexpensive and useful. One of my favorite things to leave now are individual packets of Off! insect repellent wipes. I get a few boxes of them when they go on sale and will leave a packet or two in caches.

 

Judging from some of the logs they are much appreciated.

 

Another favorite of mine to leave in the winter are the chemical hand warmers. I buy a few boxes and they come out to under a buck a pair.

 

I found a pair of the hand warmers in a recent cache, and it was somewhere around 20 degrees F out that day. I really thought about using them, but had some good gloves so left them for the next person. Thought it was a great idea and will drop those in mine when I start placing caches.

I grew up in CA, so always thought those were just a silly luxury, and wasteful...Until I started driving the Truck, and had to put on Chains when it was below zero. Now I know the value of them.

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Thank you so much for the ideas. I went on Ebay, and they have coins on there, old coins from different countries, some for only 25 cents, 35 cents, so I picked up some of those !

If you look for coins as swag, try searching for "Lots" of coins, you will get a mix that are sold by weight. I like to place things like that in little tiny baggies(most things in fact) it will help keep them nicer, and keep the Cache in better condition too. I bought a few large collections of wooden nickels, and bagged each one(mostly commorative and promotional) they are usually taken quickly from the Cache

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I've been going to the dollar store or similar places to buy swag for caches, basically I set aside $20 or so a month to buy some decent items that geocachers might use or appreciate. This month I've been leaving behind Christmas related swag such as snow globes and such. I also buy puzzle games, tools and utilities (like measuring tape) and things like compasses helpful for hiking and geocaching.

 

Now I just have to decide on what to use as a signature item that I could leave behind, something I can buy in bulk without breaking the bank or resorting to cheapo business cards. :laughing:

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I like the idea of the OFF wipes. I will keep my eye out for those. And I certainly could have used those a few times!

 

I have found a CD that a cacher had burned music they like on it, that was neat. We found a leatherman style tool in one cache that was also really cool.

 

I have left unactivated coins/TB tags in several and they always go quickl. Other items we have left: decks of cards, mini inspirational books, polished rocks, stress balls, folded up reusable environmental bags. My son has wanted to trade books however we have rarely found a cache that could hold that size, and also many of the caches have had some moisture in them. It is useful to take ziplock bags and dry wipes with you to put swag in, and to wipe out the cache if needed.

 

And we enjoy finding activated travel bugs and coins. It is neat to look them up online even if we are not able to move them along. (We are not high volume enough to move them along very quickly) It is a great geography lesson for us all to see where they have travelled.

 

Thanks

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Both Target and Wally World have bags of small toys in their cards/party departments for super cheap. Usually $1 a bag. I just avoid the dollar store in general... yuck.

 

I'm really tired of finding faded plastic toys and McDonalds coupons. I've been leaving $5 Timmy's and Starbucks cards in worthy caches. I rarely take anything

unless it's a trackable or something someone put some effort and thought in to. Maybe it's because of all the kids out caching this summer but the local caches lately

are pretty poor. I'm starting to focus on premium caches. Maybe if people know the premium caches are better supplied they will bring better stuff and provide another reason

for becoming a premium member. Thanks for the vent. :anitongue:

 

B.

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I was wondering what some good items would be to put inside of a geocache? Any ideas on signature items would be helpful as well. Thanks !

I carry round a small pot of low denomination coins from my travels around the world and randomly leave one or two. The inception of the Euro has somewhat 'de-valued' this practise unfortunately. I have picked up small stashes of old forign coins from Ebay and carboot's (UK term) to top up with as mentioned previously. I also seem to find a lot of lost golf balls from a nearby golf course and driving range which also get popped into my swag bag.

First post on these forums too

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I think the harder the geocahe is to find the better the item should be. In a fairly simple find I wouldn't expect anything worth over a quarter. Just my opinion.

I like the idea of foreign coins. Its more of a keepsake when you find them. A memory of how you got it. Something like a mcd toy or hand warmer will be thrown away within the day/week.

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I would put a stress relief ball in or a small fastfood toy. :)

 

When I first started geocaching, some years ago, the treasure was quite interesting. I would occasionally get a book, or a CD from somebody's glove compartment. Indeed, my family rekindled our love affair with Blondie thanks to a find in one such cache. Stress balls too, had their place. These days though, all we ever seem to find are plastic toys from Macdonald's, or the 25P section of Hawkins Bazaar.

 

I've decided though, that rather than moan, I will place caches containing the kind of stuff that I would like to find. I am making them multipart caches, so that you have to work for your booty, and I am mentioning this in the description of the cache.

 

Indeed, I would have posted my first such cache this afternoon, but the Geocaching site seemed to get confused halfway through my post, and I lost the entire cache description.

 

So the first bit of advice I would give anybody new who is wondering about caches, is this: first type your descriptions out in Notepad or something similar, then you can cut and paste them onto the website. If it fails, you won't have to start again from scratch!

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I am new to Geocaching so I don't have my own coin/tag/special item as of yet. :) Anyway I used to play D&D a LOT so I have tons of old miniatures that we used to use for gaming. Many are the same thing to represent large armies. SO instead of those collecting dust I have been putting them in caches I find. Elven swordsmen, wizards, skeletons and stuff like that some painted up really nice some just have the primer on them.

 

Although my first cache ever I put in a trackable geocoin, that went missing and never got logged outside of me putting it in the cache. :P

 

Oh well.

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We are both new to geo caching and have decided that we are leaving something that is insynce to our ID. Every cache that is big enough to leave swag in we leave a couple of nice looking sea shells in it. So far we haven't found anything worth taking from so we don't. We have quite a bit collection of shells that we have found on beaches that we have been to. To bad we didn't know the fun of caching then....

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On 5/3/2013 at 3:48 PM, BeorntheViking said:

I used to play D&D a LOT so I have tons of old miniatures that we used to use for gaming. Many are the same thing to represent large armies. SO instead of those collecting dust I have been putting them in caches I find.

I'd think twice if they're old enough to be lead (or containing lead) without at least attaching a warning label.

Also check on the local/regional legality of what you can/cannot do with old lead figures.

If not lead, then nevermind...

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22 hours ago, SaigeInQuesnel said:

What if i painted a rock, would that be good?

Depends on how good a painter you are... :P:D

On 4/13/2013 at 10:01 AM, ground control 1 said:

I am new, but I would say that put items inside a geocache which are the sort of things you would like to find in one. Always trade even or up, this way the quality of the cache will improve.

I left a similar answer on the other thread ('cuz I read that one first).

What I'll add now is to consider the climate you're in:

  • Crayons melt
  • Pens freeze or dry up (Pencils are better IMO)
  • Batteries also suffer effects of extreme climates
  • A lot of what I've seen lately has been destroyed/ruined by water, whether rain seepage, condensation, other.

So if it'll freeze, melt, or otherwise be affected by temperature or water, think twice or find something else that won't be.

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Have just started geocaching (after talking about it for ages!) as a way of adding interest to our dog walks. 

I’m in the antiques business, so I acquire all sorts of little random items that I think might make interesting swag, such as antique buttons, old coins, and small commemorative medals. Not much value, but interesting and often beautiful (and not badly affected by moisture). Would items like that be something people would be pleased to find? 

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2 hours ago, RomwellJr said:

Have just started geocaching (after talking about it for ages!) as a way of adding interest to our dog walks. 

I’m in the antiques business, so I acquire all sorts of little random items that I think might make interesting swag, such as antique buttons, old coins, and small commemorative medals. Not much value, but interesting and often beautiful (and not badly affected by moisture). Would items like that be something people would be pleased to find? 

There is one of those 'antiques" stores in a mall just up the road from me.  The owner puts out a "anything for a dollar" table that is loaded with stuff like that.  The first time I saw it I thought "this would be a great place to buy some swag". Typically, swag doesn't have much monetary value but might be something someone thought was interesting.   Whenever I travel to another country I bring back a handful of coins and small denomination bills.   A 500 Zambian Kwacha bill is worth about 10 cents US, but not many get the opportunity to obtain one.  I brought back a fairly large stack of them when I went there in 2008.  

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14 hours ago, NYPaddleCacher said:

There is one of those 'antiques" stores in a mall just up the road from me.  The owner puts out a "anything for a dollar" table that is loaded with stuff like that.  The first time I saw it I thought "this would be a great place to buy some swag". Typically, swag doesn't have much monetary value but might be something someone thought was interesting.   Whenever I travel to another country I bring back a handful of coins and small denomination bills.   A 500 Zambian Kwacha bill is worth about 10 cents US, but not many get the opportunity to obtain one.  I brought back a fairly large stack of them when I went there in 2008.  

Great, then I shall dig some out. I often buy ‘dealer lots’ of vintage jewellery, and they have all sorts of interesting unrelated things rattling around in the bottom (including obsolete live ammo, and once, memorably, a human wisdom tooth. Don’t worry, I won’t use them!). I’ll put a few in some ziplocks and make sure I always have a few in my pocket. :) 

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On 12/10/2009 at 10:32 PM, brandiwos said:

I was wondering what some good items would be to put inside of a geocache? Any ideas on signature items would be helpful as well. Thanks !

We place swag for children mostly (scary rubber bugs, emoji silicone bracelets, stretchy aliens & flying warrior ninjas,  squishy eyeballs for Halloween, squirt guns for summer time, red white & blue beaded necklaces for 4th of July etc). For adults skeleton keys (they serve as bottle openers, real cool!), # 2 pencils, mini Bic gel pens, tennis balls, etc. Below is a photo of the skeleton key. A nice Victorian look. It's placed on a bottle cap TB. 

traveing.jpg

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9 minutes ago, HunterandSamuel said:

For adults skeleton keys (they serve as bottle openers, real cool!), # 2 pencils, mini Bic gel pens, tennis balls, etc. Below is a photo of the skeleton key. A nice Victorian look.

 

I ordered a bunch of that same style of skeleton key today, to make a special "Roaring '20s" version of my "cache zippers".  If I can find some early 20th century style "hotel key fobs" (at ideally way less than $5 each), I'll stamp them with "room numbers".  That might be pretty cool for swag/sig items.

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1 minute ago, kunarion said:

 

I ordered a bunch of that same style of skeleton key today, to make a special "Roaring '20s" version of my "cache zippers".  If I can find some early 20th century style "hotel key fobs" (at ideally way less than $5 each), I'll stamp them with "room numbers".  That might be pretty cool for swag/sig items.

So cool! I was thinking of you when I wrote that post and wondered if you had ordered them for your Roaring 20s theme. We talked about it awhile ago on another swag thread. They are not that expensive either! Love your hotel key fobs idea. Try Etsy. They have some nice ones. 

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10 minutes ago, HunterandSamuel said:

There's some for $2.50 each and some for $5.00.

 

I previously found 1" brass circle tags with sequential numbers (stamped and black painted), in sets of 25 for $24 (less than a buck apiece!).  They're for labeling steam pipes or something.  Those are suitable.  Maybe I can stamp "KU" initials on them.  I love the hand-stamped "Custom Hotel Name" kind on Etsy, but for the price, those are more like Trackables than giveaway sig items.  But I really like the real deal, the Art Deco designed hotel fobs from actual hotels way back when.  A "Hotel Kunarion" Geocoin in that style would be super fancy, attached to a skeleton key.  I should save up for that. :cute:

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I buy little plastic toys (dinosaurs, lizards, horses) that come in packs at Dollar Tree.  Sometimes I find tiny things around my house (buttons with funny phrases on them, charms, lanyards, carabiners, --- tiny things from my my junk drawer),  I try to put things in for either a boy or a girl, so it is fun for the little ones into geocaching.  Sometimes I get creative and make things like beaded bracelets and keychains with my town's name on it (to remember where they found it).  The more you geocache, the more ideas you get of different things you can find inside.

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