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What do you leave in exchange?


Greenings2010

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So I'm just in the process of putting out 5 new caches...our firsts.

 

I think they're pretty neatly "stacked". We have scrapbooking brads, a little bundle of 7 crayons(new of course), an oriental trading foam craft kit, and a couple of those new "shaped" bracelets - what are they called again?!? - oh ya silly bands.

 

I have some extra craft kits & some crayons to put into other caches we find as a family...so I'm looking for more ideas - what do you guys leave?

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We generally don't leave anything. Or take anything.

 

Mainly because most caches that have anything in them at all have things for children.

 

I know a lot of kids cache and enjoy finding the treasure and swapping stuff, but there are also a lot of adults who cache without children, and it would be nice to find some more 'adult' stuff in caches (no, I don't mean adult in that sense :santa: ).

 

Three things I have found and traded in caches in 12 months: A Lanyard, a good strong Carabiner and a Compass.

 

Otherwise it's mostly plastic toys and children's puzzles and things like that. Maybe because it's children doing the swapping and so the swag tends to turn towards kids items.

 

I know the answer of course, we should start putting more of those adult things in caches we find. But since there is rarely anything we want to swap out it could get expensive to keep leaving stuff but never taking stuff.

 

When we set our caches we left, from memory:

 

A USB Bluetooth dongle for a laptop

A travel backgammon set

Novelty keyrings (a teddy bear and a red telephone box as I recall)

Packs of cards

Model cars

Mini LED torches (for keyrings)

and of course a few kids type toys like water pistols etc.

 

There was other stuff but it was more than a week ago so I can't remember :santa:

But most of the things were items children or adults alike would enjoy.

 

We do top up our 2 big caches from time to time, but inevitably the good stuff goes to be replaced with more and more plastic children's toys.

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I loaded my recently placed cache with stickers. Most are bike-friendly stickers since it's on a bike trail. I will be revisiting it every now and then to add more decent trade items as the current stock gets depleted and to clear out the junk that inevitably accumulates. Does anyone seriously ever take the dirty old golf balls that seem to wind up in every regular cache I find?

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I'm guilty of leaving more things children will like especially in the child friendly caches. I know many people who take their children with them to cache. I figure if the children get excited about what is in the cache, the parents will get to go more often. :huh:

 

General items I leave are emergency rain ponchos, key chains, sealed insect repellent wipes among other things. The wipes seem to be a big hit here but we have warm weather most of the year which also means mosquitoes and ticks.

 

It is rare I take any swag items.

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I'm guilty of leaving more things children will like especially in the child friendly caches. I know many people who take their children with them to cache. I figure if the children get excited about what is in the cache, the parents will get to go more often. :unsure:

 

General items I leave are emergency rain ponchos, key chains, sealed insect repellent wipes among other things. The wipes seem to be a big hit here but we have warm weather most of the year which also means mosquitoes and ticks.

 

It is rare I take any swag items.

 

Good idea on the mosquito wipes. I never thought about that. I know one cache I opened had a couple bandaids in it - I thought that was pretty good. You never know when you may open a cache & go "hey! what do ya know!! I NEEDED this bandaid!"

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I recently hid four caches in honor of my standard poodle's favorite places, so I stocked the caches with cool, dog-related items. I, too, am sometimes disappointed by all the kid-related stuff in caches, so I wanted to put something fun out there for dog lovers. ;)

 

I usually take cool coins or custom items and leave my own custom wooden nickels and assorted trinkets. Recently, I bought a bunch of inexpensive SF Giants collectible coins at Walgreen's to put in caches. It turns out that they're pretty popular now that the Giants won the series.

 

I keep a bag full of swag to trade -- unusual keychains, cute pins, silly bandz (?), lanyards, carabiners, etc. Sometimes I think I have more fun preparing my swag bag than trading. :unsure:

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We had a Life Scout in our troop working on his Eagle. For his Eagle Project he got some small flag stock and folded them like you would fold a regular sized American flag. Then he put them in a small plastic baggies and sent them to the troops overseas. Something they could have in their pocket. I liked the idea and started folding my own and using them in my caches. People always say something about them in their found it post.

 

Other good stuff is just to go to the dollar store and buy what ever will fit in the cache you are making or trading from. One sad fact of caching life is that the good swag you put in will be replaced with not so good stuff. People rarely trade up. Whenever I do cache maintenance I try to keep new swag on hand.

 

I don't see it as much anymore but people used to leave a dollar bill in the cache when they had no other trade items but they wanted something in the cache. This is great as a cache owner because I use those dollars to buy new good swag.

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So I'm just in the process of putting out 5 new caches...our firsts.

 

I think they're pretty neatly "stacked". We have scrapbooking brads, a little bundle of 7 crayons(new of course), an oriental trading foam craft kit, and a couple of those new "shaped" bracelets - what are they called again?!? - oh ya silly bands.

 

I have some extra craft kits & some crayons to put into other caches we find as a family...so I'm looking for more ideas - what do you guys leave?

 

I have left tiny plastic toys when I have taken something out,or a Vegas keyring was another thing which I left.

With christmas coming and in Britain we have christmas crackers, I will be looking to see what comes out of the crackers and hopefully "pinch" them to put in any caches I find, saves throwing the novelties away after dinner lol

Edited by ayrbrain
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I have left tiny plastic toys when I have taken something out,or a Vegas keyring was another thing which I left.

With christmas coming and in Britain we have christmas crackers, I will be looking to see what comes out of the crackers and hopefully "pinch" them to put in any caches I find, saves throwing the novelties away after dinner lol

If they are only worth putting in the bin after dinner, then they're probably not worth putting in a cache.

 

But if you get the more expensive crackers, some do have some worthwhile goodies in them. M&S premium crackers are normally quite good. :D

Trouble is, people will want to hang onto those items after dinner, not bin them or donate them :D

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Some things that we've used as swag (All bought for £1 / US$1.50 or less)

 

Multi-coloured trainer laces, 1" diameter ammonite fossils, tumbled amethyst/quartz/agate pebbles, large marbles, tweezers (not great quality ones but good enough for getting log rolls out of nanos), sheets of stickers, glo-sticks, 2 x first class postage stamps, plastic creepy crawlies, lottery scratch card, souvenir teaspoons and thimbles (from charity shops) and plastic AA/AAA battery cases.

 

MrsB

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I don't trade too often, but when I do, I leave swag that I picked-up from Michaels or discounted items from Target, Home Depot, etc. Most stores tend to discount a lot of items after the holidays. so that's when I plan ahead and stock up. I figure that I shouldn't leave anything that I wouldn't think is cool.

 

A list of what I picked-up lately for a $1 or less:

 

Decks of playing cards

Journals

Rubber Ducks

Mugs

Paper Weights

PEZ

Carabiners

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I've left mostly handmade things.

 

I started out with some little bags with patches I embroidered with GC logo, some felt embroidered ornamets, and paper bookmarks.

my-swag.jpg

 

I've just put together my new signature item swag to start releasing this weekend .. it's a ribbon bookmark with my username printed on the ribbon, and with beads and charms on both ends. These cost less than $1 to make in bulk, and I like to think it's a little nicer than a dollar store toy. I packaged some as pictured, and some rolled up much smaller to fit in smaller caches.

CC-Sig-Swag.jpg

 

However, let me just say, I have picked up some very cool little toys in geocaches, nobody is too old to have a little fun with a goofy toy! :D

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For Halloween, I left little halloween toys I got from Freddys. Now that it's not Halloween, I went to my local bead shop and picked up some silver lizard beads (they're flat and the same diameter as a 50 cent piece) which are my "signature" item to leave in a cache. (there's a photo of one as my avatar.)

Edited by pnwxbcat
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I have left tiny plastic toys when I have taken something out,or a Vegas keyring was another thing which I left.

With christmas coming and in Britain we have christmas crackers, I will be looking to see what comes out of the crackers and hopefully "pinch" them to put in any caches I find, saves throwing the novelties away after dinner lol

If they are only worth putting in the bin after dinner, then they're probably not worth putting in a cache.

 

But if you get the more expensive crackers, some do have some worthwhile goodies in them. M&S premium crackers are normally quite good. :)

Trouble is, people will want to hang onto those items after dinner, not bin them or donate them :)

I would make sure they were at least reasonable, sometimes there are nail clippers in the crackers and decent ones at that

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Some caches around here are themed ... there's one where you only swap coins, one which is for movie-related swag and old DVDs, one for keychains, and even one for regifting something you got out of another cache. That can be one way to make sure not all your area caches are just kiddie toys. Me, I carry a mix of stuff so that I can restock empty ones besides just letting my kids swap. (I buy lots of stuff at thrift stores, and the bundle bags of toys or tools or craft supplies always have good stuff that I don't need in addition to whatever I bought the bag for ... so I set the small items aside for swap.)

 

I love the bookcrossing idea, and I've seen people mention leaving the Where's George dollars too.

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I've started to make quick and easy craft projects, that I hope most adults as well as kids may like. Things such as beaded keychains, zipper pulls, bookmarks (similar to the ribbon bookmarks mentioned above), little beaded dragonfly, or person charms, etc. Very easy and inexpensive to make, and fun to do too. I also have made sure to put each in a tiny ziploc baggie to ensure there is no rusting of the metal parts. I've also made braided/woven friendship bracelets to trade.

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