+The Leprechauns Posted December 27, 2009 Share Posted December 27, 2009 Today I went geocaching for the first time all month, and began with a "warm up" cache near my home in the Pittsburgh suburbs. I stopped at a roadside pulloff, guessed that the cache was in the end of the nearest guardrail, and walked over to investigate. The first thing I noticed was a stack of geocoins, balanced on top of the guardrail's end post. There were five of them, and one more lying on the ground. I thought this was odd, especially since the cache container was large enough to hold all the coins, and there was nothing in the prior online logs suggesting a large coin dropoff. So, I decided to take all the coins home with me to investigate. They jingled in my pocket as I redeemed a prior DNF on a difficulty 4 cache, then while I admired a hilltop view at a local cemetery, and finally as I did a terrain 3 hill climb up some muddy quad trails. Returning home, I entered the tracking numbers for the six coins. All were marked "missing" in 2006 or 2007, after disappearing from caches in Pittsburgh, Wisconsin and Oklahoma. What a surprise this was! I now have the opportunity to bring these geocoins back from the dead. I am planning on grabbing the coins from limbo, explaining how I found them, then dropping them in the cache where I found them, then retrieving them. Then, I am planning to send the coins back into the wild to continue their travels. Is that the right way to proceed? I've never had this happen before. I am guessing that a former cacher had a guilty conscience and used a fairly new and easy cache as an "amnesty box," knowing it would be visited soon. Perhaps the cacher was visiting this area for the holidays. So, coin owners, never give up hope for your missing coins! At least this one time, they do reappear and are found by an honest geocacher who won't add them to a personal collection. Quote Link to comment
+pastor_b Posted December 27, 2009 Share Posted December 27, 2009 Wow! What a find... Sounds like a step towards repentance. I like your idea, but if they were my coins, I'd want them mailed to me ultimately, it's great to hear about coins resurrected to their journey Quote Link to comment
+WRITE SHOP ROBERT Posted December 27, 2009 Share Posted December 27, 2009 WooHoo!! Quote Link to comment
+seekerfamily Posted December 27, 2009 Share Posted December 27, 2009 Great to see these coins back. Had one missing for a year returned to us this summer. Keep them moving. Quote Link to comment
+LionsLair Posted December 27, 2009 Share Posted December 27, 2009 Thats strange.... I've got a strange 'return from the abyss' story as well... I just recieved through a trade today an activated coin that has been missing since '06 from someone that is not the owner. I'm waiting to hear from the trader first, but plan on contacting the original owner to see if it indeed is missing or was sold or traded away... I'll either ask for adoption or send it back to the owner because I doubt this coin makes it far in the wild... it's just too valuable and rare these days... Quote Link to comment
+TeamEccs21 Posted December 27, 2009 Share Posted December 27, 2009 Sounds like the right thing to do to me. If I was the coin owner I would be thrilled to see coins that I had listed as missing come back to life, Quote Link to comment
+The Moop Along Posted December 27, 2009 Share Posted December 27, 2009 Today I went geocaching for the first time all month, and began with a "warm up" cache near my home in the Pittsburgh suburbs. I stopped at a roadside pulloff, guessed that the cache was in the end of the nearest guardrail, and walked over to investigate. The first thing I noticed was a stack of geocoins, balanced on top of the guardrail's end post. There were five of them, and one more lying on the ground. I thought this was odd, especially since the cache container was large enough to hold all the coins, and there was nothing in the prior online logs suggesting a large coin dropoff. So, I decided to take all the coins home with me to investigate. They jingled in my pocket as I redeemed a prior DNF on a difficulty 4 cache, then while I admired a hilltop view at a local cemetery, and finally as I did a terrain 3 hill climb up some muddy quad trails. Returning home, I entered the tracking numbers for the six coins. All were marked "missing" in 2006 or 2007, after disappearing from caches in Pittsburgh, Wisconsin and Oklahoma. What a surprise this was! I now have the opportunity to bring these geocoins back from the dead. I am planning on grabbing the coins from limbo, explaining how I found them, then dropping them in the cache where I found them, then retrieving them. Then, I am planning to send the coins back into the wild to continue their travels. Is that the right way to proceed? I've never had this happen before. I am guessing that a former cacher had a guilty conscience and used a fairly new and easy cache as an "amnesty box," knowing it would be visited soon. Perhaps the cacher was visiting this area for the holidays. So, coin owners, never give up hope for your missing coins! At least this one time, they do reappear and are found by an honest geocacher who won't add them to a personal collection. You know. I wish you lived closer so we could go caching sometime. It sucks that we only see you once or twice a year. I love those kind of stories. TMA Quote Link to comment
+Eartha Posted December 27, 2009 Share Posted December 27, 2009 Excellent news! Thank you for sharing. Quote Link to comment
+opalsns Posted December 27, 2009 Share Posted December 27, 2009 FABULOUS !!!!! What a way to brighten our days. Thank You for sharing this story. Hopefully ALL will be returned someday!!! Fingers crossed!!!!\ GOOD JOB!!!! Quote Link to comment
+GATOULIS Posted December 27, 2009 Share Posted December 27, 2009 Excellent news!!!! Yes! We will never give up on our missing coins.... I have some missing too! One of them was found again and then went missing ...again! Who knows what the future will bring! Quote Link to comment
+ThePetersTrio Posted December 27, 2009 Share Posted December 27, 2009 Never give up hope... I bet those coin owners are happy!! Good job!! Quote Link to comment
JohnMac56 Posted December 28, 2009 Share Posted December 28, 2009 I just got a notification today that one of my coins that was missing was found again after 16 months!!! I guess we should all listen here and never give up hope on those missing coins.... Quote Link to comment
+hollora Posted December 28, 2009 Share Posted December 28, 2009 We can only control what we personally do with trackables in our possession. You are doing the right thing. I, personally, would wait to hear from the coin owners before sending them back on their way. And as a cache owner, you can only go look at the logs where coins have gone missing and try to sort through the paper and then on-line logs to try and create a history. Then, if you are inclined, perhaps email folks who may have seen a trackable. Lastly, as a trackable owner - you, too, have the ability to try and track and/or contact folks who may have been in touch with or seen your trackable. Sometimes it helps to know one cacher did or did not see it in the cache to pin point a date something may have gone MIA. Woo hoo on this recovery. Thanks, too, for sharing the story. Quote Link to comment
+burgessfour Posted December 28, 2009 Share Posted December 28, 2009 Oh thats great news! I found one left in a cache that wasn't listed but had been missing for over a year; what a wonderful feeling it was to be able to get it traveling again Quote Link to comment
+The Leprechauns Posted December 28, 2009 Author Share Posted December 28, 2009 Thank you everyone for your replies. I have now entered my "good news!" logs on each geocoin's page, and dropped them into the cache, which is ironically called "Silver". You can see the geocoins on the cache page right now, or later on by clicking the "history" link in the trackables box after I've retrieved the coins. In my logs on the geocoin pages I asked the owner to contact me if they had any special instructions. I will hold onto the coins for a little while before releasing them to resume their travels, in case any of the owners respond. Quote Link to comment
+Vanelle Posted December 28, 2009 Share Posted December 28, 2009 This is a great story - I try not to give up hope on my missing coins in the wild. Most of them eventually resurface. Thanks for sharing! Quote Link to comment
+fuzziebear3 Posted December 29, 2009 Share Posted December 29, 2009 Great to hear these coins are alive and kicking again! Never give up hope! Quote Link to comment
+Droo Posted December 29, 2009 Share Posted December 29, 2009 Great story and what a way to start the new year on a good note. I think you did the best possible thing. These were released to travel and after a long vacation they are back on the road again. Woohoo. Why would a coin owner want their resurfaced coin sent back to them? I've never heard of a traveler being pulled out of the game by the owner.... it's usually by a muggle or a thief! Quote Link to comment
avroair Posted December 29, 2009 Share Posted December 29, 2009 Point up for the good guys! Quote Link to comment
+GeocoinGuy Posted December 30, 2009 Share Posted December 30, 2009 Even if it was from a bad guy... it's still a great story...... ~J Quote Link to comment
+teamhaynes Posted January 1, 2010 Share Posted January 1, 2010 Must be the season to find the lost travelers... I found a missing coin TB1KBQ7 yesterday as well... I took a trip out to GC30 Mingo (oldest active cache) to get my 800th find and came across a coin that had been missing since 07... I contacted the owner to see what she wants since she had ressurected the coin as a travel bug so we don't want two items with the same tracking number traveling around. Sure was fun to bring this one back from the dead Quote Link to comment
+GeeOCachers Posted January 2, 2010 Share Posted January 2, 2010 Back in 2006, I went to a local cache which was fairly difficult, but a nice find none the less. I grabbed the TB that was in the cache, and brought it home to log it. Turns out, it had gone missing 1 year to the exact date of my finding it. Very weird! Someone had been out that day and dropped it off as an amnesty as well. Nobody knows who did it, but it was returned! Quote Link to comment
+RadishSpirit Posted January 2, 2010 Share Posted January 2, 2010 Wow... I was just planning a visit to some of your caches in Pittsburgh, Leprechauns! Sounds to me like some muggle ended up with them and put them there, not knowing what to do. Maybe some kid's mother found them and wanted to return them. Now I'll have to keep an eye out for stacks of coins laying around Pittsburgh guard rails! Quote Link to comment
+nielsenc Posted January 2, 2010 Share Posted January 2, 2010 I think I am going to make an Amnesty Cache so people can drop off old coins/TBs which they find without fear of others knowing. Quote Link to comment
+ThePetersTrio Posted January 2, 2010 Share Posted January 2, 2010 to get my 800th find Wow!! Congrats on 800!! Quote Link to comment
+teamhaynes Posted January 2, 2010 Share Posted January 2, 2010 to get my 800th find Wow!! Congrats on 800!! Thanks Quote Link to comment
+CCWelch Posted January 2, 2010 Share Posted January 2, 2010 to get my 800th find Wow!! Congrats on 800!! Thanks Congrats on 800!! I think I would contact the coin owners first and see what they want done with their coins, I know I would want mine sent to me to sit in my collection. If you don't hear from them in a couple of weeks then send them back out. Quote Link to comment
+teamhaynes Posted January 2, 2010 Share Posted January 2, 2010 to get my 800th find Wow!! Congrats on 800!! Thanks Congrats on 800!! I think I would contact the coin owners first and see what they want done with their coins, I know I would want mine sent to me to sit in my collection. If you don't hear from them in a couple of weeks then send them back out. I contacted the coin owner and she was delighted to see it back in action... She wants it to be put back into circulation... Funny thing about this coin.. It went missing despite one of those hitch hiker companion dog tags attached to it...Coin was drilled and Don't Keep Me/Please Move me tags was attached... I guess those don't even work to keep people from holding onto them... But nice to see it moving after 2 years of missing Quote Link to comment
+Carbon Hunter Posted January 3, 2010 Share Posted January 3, 2010 Brilliant story. It seems something similar happened up in Washington a while back. One of my coins (missing for over a year) was found by a cache along with 8 others that were all MIA. It was amazing as I had a second coin that went missing in South Africa a year before appear in the UK unexpectedly in the same month - also after a year. Both coins did not seem to have a "trail" belong to any particular cacher that I could pin point either. So these things do happen - and it REALLY brings joy to you when they do. Thanks for Sharing Leps. And a happy and blessed new year to all. Hope to hear more similar stories in 2010! Quote Link to comment
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