Wisconsin Caches Missing Geocoins

[+chrgis&j]

We recently moved to Milwaukee from Ft. Lauderdale. In Florida, we had a blast moving coins from place to place. Here in SE Wisconsin, we have been able to find only one geocoin where is was listed. Every cache we found that was supposed to have a coin had none. It seems that someone is collecting geocoins here. So,

Geocaching in SE Wisconsin over for us. It's no fun anymore thanks to the "collector" . We retrived our coins that haven't been taken and won't be leaving anything in any caches much less looking anymore.

 

Is anyone else missing their coins here and fed up?

 

Maybe we could get together and start a sting operation to catch the "collector"?

[+Team Black-Cat]

I can't say for certain, but I would bet that the situation is the same in Florida as it is in Wisconsin or anywhere else.

[+KJcachers]

why quit caching just because of missing coins? the find is the fun, trackables are just an extra! BTW, when we find a cache inventory is off we contact the cache owner and the trackable owner and let them know what we found and ask them to move the trackables to the "missing" location to help keep cache inventories more accurate. Not a reason to quit caching, just something that is a fact of life and not hard to deal with it.

Edited March 28, 2010 by KJcachers

[+BlueDeuce]

I can check your local cache listings but it's likely a accumulation of travelers the have gone missing over the years and the bug and cache owners have never cleared them out. Stinks doughnut.

[+buttaskotch]

Cutting off your nose to spite your face, eh? This game like many others has cheaters and thieves. its a fact of life.

[+Endorfun]

I have been thinking of this very topic myself for the past few weeks, until now I thought that I might start a thread on this my self.

I am located in South Queensland, Australia and have noticed the mystery where abouts of trackables to be on the rise over the past 3 months or so. It is not a case of just not having been noticed until rescently as a few of the GC I am thinking of were not even released into the world until a few weeks ago.

Three weeks ago I was out on a Sunday morning, I went to 9 locations, plus returned to two locations that I had been to the week before.

I was going to make a play by play account of the items but it was going to be very long, I deleted it all the way back to this point and will make a general statement that will not be so wordy.

I could have ended up with 7 or more new trackalbes for me to move out of the 11 caches I visited. I actually got home with zero trackable having only placed the two that I had already. The four caches that reported trackalbes had in total two TB and those two were in caches that they had already been two before believe it or not. Four GC's are still no where to be found as they were not in the caches that they were reported to be in. The two caches that I revisited, also had reported me as the last person to visit the cache, the one with a GC was gone, the one that was a TB was still in the cache as I had left it.

I had visited more than 11 caches in those two weeks, but it was these 11 caches that had a story to tell. Out of 45 caches that I had gone to in 8 weeks 25% of them had their trackables tampered with by those that did not make any sort of log entry. There were a few other caches that did have something strange go on along with a log entry but I am sure that it was more an admin mistake rather than a vandal issue.

And finally, my plans to do things with trackables and making hides have been greatly affected by all this that goes on, and by goes on, I would like to know to what extent all this is heading to, how long has this been as it is, and anything else that can shed some light on this?

Edited March 29, 2010 by Endorfun

[MikeB3542]

First of all, WELCOME TO MILWAUKEE!

 

Obviously, the weather up here is a bit different that Ft Lauderdale. You learn to love the changing seasons. Give it a chance, and it grows on you.

 

Second of all, WELCOME to the SE WI geocaching community. My suggestion is to go to a WGA event and meet us -- there is a GeoPizza Social coming on April 10 in Greenfield, and a Intro to Geocaching/CITO event in Waukesha on April 17. They will also be having a camp event at Richard Bong SRA near Burlington in mid-May. Hard to imagine a friendlier bunch.

 

Sorry to hear about the pilfered coins. There unfortunately are people who insist on taking the fun out of stuff. They're everywhere. I say don't let 'em get you down. BTW, seems that most of the serious GC owners don't let their coins circulate freely -- they do bring them to events where they will be happy to let you have a look and log a "Discover".

[MikeB3542]

Oh yeah, and join WGA -- it's a freebie and a good way to keep up with the local comings and goings: www.wi-geocaching.com

 

If you venture down to the Chicago area, check out GONIL: www.gonil.org

[AZcachemeister]

This problem has been going on in Arizona for probably two years or so.

As I have stated elsewhere, it defies logic, since the thieves cannot share their ill-gotten treasure with anyone but other thieves (perhaps).

If moving coins was you only joy in the game, then I guess your only option is to bail out now.

[Keystone]

I am moving this thread from the Geocaching Topics forum to the Geocoin Discussions forum.

[+wolfslady]

I think you are on to something. Even in my short geocaching career I can tell you that there seem to be areas where the caches are better maintained and actually have at least some of the traveling items they claim and areas where they seem to have been collected. In S. FL where we started Geocaching, many of the larger caches we visited had TB's and most had swag. The fair to decent trade items far out numbered the out and out junk. The few we found on our trip home seemed the same way. Once I got back here, I'm sad to say that changed and not for the better. None of the coins and very few of the TBs listed in caches were actually there. Few of the caches have anything worth trading for. I'd say that 3/4 have nothing but business cards and garbage. I'm talking about things that even a 2 yo would throw away. Bottle caps, broken hair ties, a cigeratte, a soda can tab, a pebble from a nearby pile... In one a paper drink umbrella was the best thing in there. Sad. At least 1/4 were wet. I quickly used up my swag (intended to last months) leaving a few things in the ones I knew kids were likely to visit. Oddly I seemed to hit a buffer zone once I got away from my town and the ratio switched in favor of better caches with nicer swag. So I have to conclude that there are areas where someone or even many people are rude. (I'm being nice.) Sure some of it can be explained by the fact that the owner of the cache doesn't care enough to maintain it or remove missing items from the but that only explains some caches. Not miles of them.

 

There also seem to be caches that are being used as collection stops. Sadly I made the mistake of putting the "Big Love ~ Little Hearts" coin I released into one of these and at this point I'm pretty sure that it's gone missing. I was using my cell phone to find it and as far as I can tell it doesn't show me TB lists. If it had I would never have left anything in it. It was nice cache and it did have a few nice trade items and a TB that I picked up. So I left the coin there over a month ago. It hasn't been logged (or mentioned) since, even though the cache has been visited several times. When I looked online I noticed that it listed quite a few TB's and coins that were not there when I visited but were placed before then. My guess would be that for the most part it's not random people taking things from the same cache. So this has me wondering is anyone keeping track? Should there be a warning on the page of caches that have more than a usual number of travel items go missing? May a section that is like the travelers listed that say "missing from this cache" and lists every item that was logged in, but not out. That would deter someone from placing a cache to harvest items, and then marking them missing so the next unsuspecting person puts one in. Or even from well meaning cache owners doing so thinking they are keeping others from hunting for things that aren't there when in fact they are helping to cover up the problem. I'm sure that many times a TB was reported as missing someone was just slow in logging it so a few "wasn't there logs isn't enough to tip someone off to a problem. Even leaving the missing items in the same section, in red and not counting them as inventory would work.

 

I need to go to bed. I get all these ideas when I haven't slept and they may not sound as good once I'm not sleep deprived.

[+Droo]

"Collectors" don't steal coins from caches, thieves do.

 

Coins stolen from caches are activated and not adoptable except by the coin owner and therefore of no value to the collector-trader, except perhaps to re-release to continue its travels. Collectors buy the coins they collect and trade.

Edited March 29, 2010 by Droo

[+Droo]

 

...

 

So this has me wondering is anyone keeping track? Should there be a warning on the page of caches that have more than a usual number of travel items go missing? May a section that is like the travelers listed that say "missing from this cache" and lists every item that was logged in, but not out. That would deter someone from placing a cache to harvest items, and then marking them missing so the next unsuspecting person puts one in. Or even from well meaning cache owners doing so thinking they are keeping others from hunting for things that aren't there when in fact they are helping to cover up the problem. I'm sure that many times a TB was reported as missing someone was just slow in logging it so a few "wasn't there logs isn't enough to tip someone off to a problem. Even leaving the missing items in the same section, in red and not counting them as inventory would work.

 

...

 

Alas, there is no GC Police. No one is keeping track. Cache owners have the responsibility to maintain their caches and reviewers only jump in when asked by users complaining that a cache has gone missing or someone wants to place a new one in the vicinity of a cache accumulating DNFs.

Well intententioned cachers can post logs warning others that gc/tbs have been going missing from a particular cache but these logs can easily be deleted by the cache owner who doesn't want the bad publicity. You can argue that it's in the owner's best interest in the long run but you can't force everyone to the share your point of view. Some cache owners have been known to use their Hotels as a way to accumulate travelers that mysteriously go missing just to attract more visitors.

As for quality of swag.... that is the responsibility of cachers and the trade items they leave behind. I've stuffed caches with quality swag only to find the kind of junk you spoke of shortly thereafter. Why? Parents feel it's okay to teach kids that to disrespect the property of others is okay and to leave trash for swag is acceptable behaviour for their precious ones.

[+GeocoinGuy]

We recently moved to Milwaukee from Ft. Lauderdale. In Florida, we had a blast moving coins from place to place. Here in SE Wisconsin, we have been able to find only one geocoin where is was listed. Every cache we found that was supposed to have a coin had none. It seems that someone is collecting geocoins here. So,

Geocaching in SE Wisconsin over for us. It's no fun anymore thanks to the "collector" . We retrived our coins that haven't been taken and won't be leaving anything in any caches much less looking anymore.

 

Is anyone else missing their coins here and fed up?

 

Maybe we could get together and start a sting operation to catch the "collector"?

In SE WI/NE IL (having spent the last 11 years there), there is a group of cachers who get together quite often. You might want to check out "Geocaching Wheypoint", which is a local forum run by Cheesehead Dave (The Cheeseheads).

 

I believe this topic has been addressed on that forum.

 

~J

[+wolfslady]

"Collectors" don't steal coins from caches, thieves do.

 

Coins stolen from caches are activated and not adoptable except by the coin owner and therefore of no value to the collector-trader, except perhaps to re-release to continue its travels. Collectors buy the coins they collect and trade.

 

 

 

I think that's why "collectors" was in quotes. (smile)

[+CCWelch]

Hmm missing coins....how about having an event in an area and after the event a couple regular ammo can caches are missing that were there earlier in the evening.

 

Once I release my coins or TB I just say goodbye, if you are attached to it, don't send it out. Same goes for containers.

[+power69]

I can check your local cache listings but it's likely a accumulation of travelers the have gone missing over the years and the bug and cache owners have never cleared them out. Stinks doughnut.

unfortunately some owners think a full juicy inventory will get their caches more visits when in actuality it just results in disappointed visitors. I keep my caches clean, meaning if someone notes a missing coin, i'll give it a few weeks then mark it missing.

[+labrat_wr]

I can check your local cache listings but it's likely a accumulation of travelers the have gone missing over the years and the bug and cache owners have never cleared them out. Stinks doughnut.

 

this is also another reason that if a cache inventory states a coin or TB is in the cache but you find it missing, note that in your log to the cache owner. You can also send a note to the owner of the TB/GC to let them know too. I have had several travelers go missing and if I would have been notified earlier than 8-12 months, I could have contacted the finders of the cache from the time the item was dropped to the time it was found missing and tried to determine if the item is in someones possession or not. Yes sometimes people forget to log their grabs, and if you remind them soon after, they are more likely to 1) log it into/out of the cache. 2) remember where it is so it doesn't get lost in there cache bag or in the toybox or wherever. 3) realize that these items belong to someone who really cares that they are in circulation.

[+chrgis&j]

Problem solved. We grabbed a geocoin yesterday. They owner had the best idea yet!!!

They copied their geocoin, both sides and then laminated the copies.

You keep the original geocoin and send out the laminated replica.

I love this idea!!! We will be replicating our original geocoins and will be sending out the copies.

Now if one goes missing, we can replace it and the journey continues...

[+Droo]

Problem solved. We grabbed a geocoin yesterday. They owner had the best idea yet!!!

They copied their geocoin, both sides and then laminated the copies.

You keep the original geocoin and send out the laminated replica.

I love this idea!!! We will be replicating our original geocoins and will be sending out the copies.

Now if one goes missing, we can replace it and the journey continues...

Another proxy convert..... to prevent ill will and several degrees of displeasure among finders do indicate in the coin's name that it is a PROXY. Just mention PROXY in the name/title and no one can complain they didn't get to handle the real deal.