TB's becoming a thing of the past?

[+deb3day]

I'm wondering if TB's are becoming extinct? Is it worth it to even try anymore? I've activated 12 TB's in 2 years. 2 are personal trackables. 1 is a geocoin that I dip for milage, one is a stuffed animal that I take to events for discovery. Of the remaining 10, 5 have gone missing, some with less than 300 miles logged. Does anyone bother to take care of other people's trackables anymore?

 

Sorry to be a whiner, but I just found out that another went missing and it's bumming me out. I enjoy moving people's trackables and I can't understand why others are so careless with other people's TB's.

[+BlueDeuce]

I have bugs that have been out for six years. One of them went missing just a couple weeks ago and I plan on re-releasing it exactly as it was before. Another I've replaced 3 times and when it goes missing I'll re-release that one too.

 

And I just keep fine-tuning my travelers so that they have the best chance possible to stay in circulation. Sure they go missing but I look at that as an opportunity to try again. It's kinda fun building a bug and it's certainly better than crying over the one that was lost.

 

Personally I think micros are the biggest hinderance for bugs.

[+ngrrfan]

I have one that within a month of release it has almost attained its goal, but it has to hang around the target area for a year to actually accomplish the goal.

 

I have two other TBs that have been picked up and not dropped anywhere else (yet.)

And I have two that are still sitting in caches waiting to be picked up.

 

Basically, I don't expect any of them to have "long lives" but it sure is interesting watching and waiting for them to move. (Heck I've got a cache that STILL hasn't been found and its been out for two months! )

 

So it all boils down to.... don't expect miracles from your TBs. Some live long lives, others go MIA fairly quickly, and some sit for months before being moved ('cause you put them in hard to get to caches).

[+dfx]

one of our TBs was picked up once, dropped in an event and was never seen again

[hoosier guy]

I have bugs that have been out for six years. One of them went missing just a couple weeks ago and I plan on re-releasing it exactly as it was before. Another I've replaced 3 times and when it goes missing I'll re-release that one too.

 

And I just keep fine-tuning my travelers so that they have the best chance possible to stay in circulation. Sure they go missing but I look at that as an opportunity to try again. It's kinda fun building a bug and it's certainly better than crying over the one that was lost.

 

Personally I think micros are the biggest hinderance for bugs.

 

I hope TBs don't go the way of the mammoth. My kids love finding them and checking out the maps to track where they have been. I believe you are right on the money with your comment on micros. Sometimes it is hard to find a nice cache to drop a TB so we put them in ones we have already found in areas that seem to have a decent amount of activity going on.

[+SirKarp]

It'll be one year of caching for us next month and for all that time we have avoided TBs of all types because we didn't want the responsibility of others hopes and dreams. Finally last month we made the choice to pick up a lonely TB and move it on. Since then we've moved 3 more, not a one has really gone anywhere. All have been picked up but only one so far has been placed back into a cache that has had just a few visits since being placed. Two appear to have been retrieved by cachers who cache infrequently and the last one was picked up almost 2 weeks ago and we're hoping gets placed soon. Now our hopes and dreams are riding on these TBs as well, we want to see where and who they meet. But with such a poor success rate in helping these TBs get on with their missions we are unsure if we want to move anymore.

 

Why is it if one only caches a few times a year do they bother to pick up someone's TB. Commonsense says all they are doing is impeding the TB progress and making it easy for it to go MIA.

[+DragonsWest]

I pick them up at every opportunity and move them along as quickly and widely as I can. I'm probably some sort of decent fellow, despite all my best laid plans.

 

I've had misfortune with my geocoins, and I'm unlikely to release any more of them as the coin itself, though perhaps as a proxy. They're expensive and some people don't know they are not swag, or they just go away with muggles who have pillaged caches or, what completely disgusts me, are hoarded by filth masquerading as geocachers.

 

Dog-tags have fared better and are considerably less expensive, further, I have a set of metal letter punches and can rig up a replacement dog-tag in a jiffy and restart it.

 

I'm rather at a loss with pathtags and other sig items as I generally do not like to go outside geocaching.com to log trackables. Everybody and their kid brother could rig up a site for their own trackable items at it becomes a spot of bother trying to remember all those sites, so I tend to leave them.

Edited April 23, 2010 by DragonsWest

[+AuntieWeasel]

I've just checked. Of the twenty TB's I've put out in the last five years (well, twenty one...but one is personal), five have had a log in 2010.

 

One in four isn't bad, especially as I haven't launched one in a couple of years. And once in a while, one will pop up after a LONG period of dormancy.

 

I would bet that another one in four disappears in the first hop.

[+NeecesandNephews]

I hope those words about them being a "thing of the past" aren't prophetic! I just received four of them in the mail last week. I plan on placing two in caches I am preparing to list as FTF prizes, and plan to release the other two into the wild to travel.

 

I have kept watch on all the bugs and coins I have moved (which is not very many) but all of them are still travelling! I am going to go retrieve one I placed in a low traffic cache, and move it to a cache that sees more logs, as it has been sitting since I placed it.

 

I can see where they seem to get "lost" easily as nearly half the bugs and coins I have seen were either not logged in the cache I found them in, or the logs were messed up. Several were picked up and moved with only a "discovered" log, not a "retrieve" and "drop". Just yesterday I picked up a Geocoin in a cache that saw an amazing amount of traffic in the Oklahoma Spring Fling event last weekend. It was last logged into a cache on the other side of the state. I am waiting to see if the person who logged it in the last cache (and attended the event) catches up on his logging, before I do a "grab".

 

I found several bugs and coins while out on a "caching day" yesterday, and after returning home and attempting to log a "Discovered" on them, found they were listed in far away caches from where I actually found them. How they ended up in these different "event" associated caches, without being logged, is just sad, in my opinion. Looks like if you are taking time out of your busy life to attend an event, you could at least log the bugs and coins in and out. I noticed several of the last cachers to log these bugs took the time to log attending the event!

 

Not making excuses, but I think a lot of new people just don't know what to do when they run into problems logging the bugs and coins. It was easy for me because I came to the Forums almost immediately after starting caching, but most of the cachers in my area are not Forum regulars. I suspect many bugs and coins are inadvertently "kept" due to logging issues.

 

Sorry for going off on a rant!!

[+TreasureKid's]

I am fairly new to caching (only 37 found) and really don't think TB logging is rocket science. It was a week or two after starting that I had time to look at the forums and it wasn't that hard to figure out. Seeming info on them is all over the home page I find it kinda smacks you in the face so really there should be no excuses. I also think that if your planning on taking a break your last "chore" should be to go drop all TB's in our possession and log them. Even if you just drop them all in the closest cache that will accommodate them. JMO

[viper1986]

I am just a few days new to geocaching and my first 18 caches were almost all micros. But today i did a 30mile bike ride and found so many small caches!

I got 2tags and one coin.

 

I read about them and all 3 owners want them to "travel far"

So i figured the best place would be a cache near the international airport, so i looked there and there is cache called "Travel bug hilton" (GC1M031).

So in a few days, or a week or so when i got time to go out there, ill drop off all the TB i picked up and hope someone going to korea or UK picks them up!

 

I think the idea for a TB is THE BEST.

So far i totally get "swag" its so pointless.

So far i have put in a penny and took at a marble...

Put in a rock and took nothing...

 

Kinda boring? TBs are so much cooler cause you can see where they been and stuff.

I did follow the TBs i found, and you are right, people dont log them right. I am new and i already figired it out, you log when you pickup, and when you drop off.

[+worstcaster]

I pick one up for the first time last month. It was picked up again and moving 3 days after I dropped it. Before I picked up the bug, I checked its listing to make sure I could help it along on its mission.

[+BeachBoy38]

I have set out 5 TB's over the past 7 years and only two are still active. One is in Germany and seems to be moving around fairly fast. I guess German folk are more honest than us in the USA. Maybe we get it from the politicians and lawyers. A virus that will never go away.

 

happy hunting! []

[+deb3day]

I'm really annoyed about a person who picked up a TB in my TB hotel. They have a picture of it with one of their kids. Kid is about 4 or so. Kid has his own geocaching name. Kid has 5 finds (my hotel was the first). Kid has possession of the TB which obviously he liked as a toy (it was a Disney character). Kid evidently still has the toy because it was never seen again. I even email the Dad who lied to me and said he'd place the TB. Not done. That was nearly 2 years ago. Nice how Dad is teaching kid to keep things that aren't his.

[+BlueDeuce]

I'm really annoyed about a person who picked up a TB in my TB hotel. They have a picture of it with one of their kids. Kid is about 4 or so. Kid has his own geocaching name. Kid has 5 finds (my hotel was the first). Kid has possession of the TB which obviously he liked as a toy (it was a Disney character). Kid evidently still has the toy because it was never seen again. I even email the Dad who lied to me and said he'd place the TB. Not done. That was nearly 2 years ago. Nice how Dad is teaching kid to keep things that aren't his.

 

Two years ago? Holy cats! Re-release the thing already and enjoy the new logs.

[+Trucker Lee]

I've had about half my travelers disappear, two in the hands of new cachers and others that dropped off the grid, perhaps just logged into the wrong cache. Part of the game, I guess.

 

But disappearing, I hope not. I enjoy moving the occasional TB, grabbed one this morning that was just released, I am the first conveyance for it.

[+JeepGirl300]

I enjoy the TB's. All sorts.. I have 5 that I have out in the wild.. I think that most people are honest. I know that I sometimes end up having mine for awhile..because there are a lot more micros than smalls and regs. I never even thought about dippin for mileage until someone did that for my bug. So now I know.

 

I don't think they are going to go extinct.. I just think that there are different types of cachers out there.

[+Zangvogel]

If TB's are becoming a thing of the past, it will be because there are too many of them these days.

 

It used to be really special if you found a TB in a cache, and because it was so special people were willing to take some extra effort to fulfill the goals of the TB or help them on their way.

 

These days, there are so many TB's, that they are not 'special' anymore in the sense that it's extraordinary to find one. And that's reflected in the attitude of people towards them.

 

At least, that's what I think.

[+rdfirebrd]

I seem to have this same problem...I've released 6 coins/tbs since I started caching and all but 1 of those are missing. 1 made it 700 miles, 2 made it 400 miles, and the other 3 were all gone either being moved once or never even leaving the first cache I placed them in.

 

I'd like to keep dropping them as I like the trackables...but with this kind of success rate, I'll need to figure out something to try and help them survive if I release anymore(too much money to only watch them move once or twice).

[+AuntieWeasel]

I get the impression coins vanish more often than tagged items. They certainly did when they were new, and I suspect that still happens. I think travel bug tags attached to especially cool objects disappear more often, too.