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I'm done


BajaBekka

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I've spent TONS of money making caches, buying a GPS, coins, etc. I have made some nice caches with great coins, FTF prizes, etc.

 

All I ask is that the finder trades equally, i.e., coin for coin -- yet now I have a new cache pillaged with NOTHING left, not even a stupid plastic alien trinket.

 

I'm done.... it's not fun nor is it fair --- i play by the rules why can't everyone else? In fact I feel COMPELLED to leave much MORE than I take....

 

My caches are premium member caches only --- I did email the pillager and ask that if they cannot play by the rules to refrain from seeking my caches but I doubt that's going to do any good....

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While I know some share your sentiment, you will likely not find much sympathy for harboring a one for one type rule on geocoins in your caches. Folks like to call them "prisons", and give them other such names to paint them in a negative light.

 

Provided the coins in the cache have no mission, I have no problem with a one for one rule, and it's a rule that I play by personally. Provided it's a coin with no mission. If it's got somewhere to go, something it wants to do, other than move around from cache to cache, I go by that.

 

Just my .02.

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Provided the coins in the cache have no mission, I have no problem with a one for one rule, and it's a rule that I play by personally. Provided it's a coin with no mission.

i don't even do that. no mission = move from cache to cache. sitting in a cache is not moving, so if i find such a coin, i take it and move it elsewhere. it's what the owner of the coin wants - what the owner of the cache wants is irrelevant.

Edited by dfx
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I've spent TONS of money making caches, buying a GPS, coins, etc. I have made some nice caches with great coins, FTF prizes, etc.

 

All I ask is that the finder trades equally, i.e., coin for coin -- yet now I have a new cache pillaged with NOTHING left, not even a stupid plastic alien trinket.

 

I'm done.... it's not fun nor is it fair --- i play by the rules why can't everyone else? In fact I feel COMPELLED to leave much MORE than I take....

 

My caches are premium member caches only --- I did email the pillager and ask that if they cannot play by the rules to refrain from seeking my caches but I doubt that's going to do any good....

 

Hmmmmmmm, how to respond, how to respond, how to respond.

 

This is tough because I don't know you well enough to know how to answer.

 

I can only tell you where I have come to in life. I'm going to talk about religion, but if you are not a believer, just think of it as philosophy, literature, and poetry.

 

The best known psalm is the 23rd psalm it is a poem about being taken care of and having everything you need. It begins, "the Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want . . . " In my mind, the most important line is "My cup runneth over" In more modern language, it reads "my cup overflows". To me this line is about true giving and true happiness. If we don't have enough, we give because we expect to get back. However, when we have everything we need, we give because we have too much and we feel that we must give so that what we have is not wasted.

 

In short, my advice is this. If you feel that you don't have enough, then don't give. If you give, because you want to get something equal in return, don't give. Don't misunderstand me, you do get something back when you give, but very seldom is is what you expected and seldom is it immediate. For me the most basic reason that I give is that because I get lonely if I am only enjoying something by myself.

 

My story is this. When I was younger, I was poor and did not have enough. I was always taking and had no desire to give. I could not even imagine myself giving. As time passed, I began to see that material possessions do give happiness and I mean true happiness. However, it gets lonely when you are enjoying them by yourself. I began to see that I did not need so much and it just became natural to give away the extra that I had. It made me happier.

 

Getting back to caches. In the not so long time that I have been caching, I have seen many people who give much more than they take. I don't think they do it because they expect to get back equal amounts, I think they do it because they have what they need and their cup has overflowed.

 

 

I wrote the following prayer for my nephew, but now that I have children, we say it every night before we eat dinner. It was written to sound like the prayer "God is Great, God is good".

 

Praise be to God who makes our food

Who gives us love and all that's good

God grant us all we need to live

Abundant lives so we may give

 

Please take this post as my personal outlook and not the desire to convince anyone about a particular religious view.

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Provided the coins in the cache have no mission, I have no problem with a one for one rule, and it's a rule that I play by personally. Provided it's a coin with no mission.

i don't even do that. no mission = move from cache to cache. sitting in a cache is not moving, so if i find such a coin, i take it and move it elsewhere. it's what the owner of the coin wants - what the owner of the cache wants is irrelevant.

 

Most definetily yes.

A year ago I wrote about this already....

 

Activated Coins and TBs are NO trade items, they are travellers.

No need to leave something in place.

I don't need to find new tennants when checking out of a hotel room, have I?

 

If those coins are unaktivated, than I agree, it is sad, that no trade items are left behind in place.

I had a new cache, where I left several pathtags for the finders. The fourth finder complained about an empty box. That's no my fault, if some people don't treat the game anymore as it should be.

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Are the coins clearly marked as unactivated if unactivated? So that it's obvious it's a trade item? If it wasn't clearly labeled as such I'd be likely to take it and attempt to move it and not realize it's a trade item until it's too late to trade.

 

I'm one of the people who liberate all traveling items in a cache. Traveling items want to travel not to just sit around in caches prettying up a cache page.

 

I probably wouldn't put geocoins in as swag. How many times do newer folks come here with not understanding travel items in general? We teach that they're not trade items and then you toss in well some of them are but you won't be able to tell a difference? Makes it overly complicated for the newer folks.

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I totally agree with you!!!!

Archived my caches. Every geocoin and TB I ever released is "missing'.

Caches , stolen, even the 2 missions I have going around, for a year, have all of a sudden, Come up missing.????

One of the cachers that was sent the mission, doesn't log the geocoins they find in caches untill their good and ready, but they didn't recieve the mission??? How would I ever know.

A few of us here had to cover for some cachers that signed up and recieved missions, then all of a sudden, they can't Afford to re send the missions back out?!?!

One of my missions went missing and after MONTHS of emailing them and trying to call them, they had to be snail mailed to finally get the...

"Life Happens" response. BULL++++.

Oh and I had a cache , in my yard, I kept full of treats for young and old alike.checked it everyday to keep it full. A family came in and while the parents were signing in, their lovely little children raped the cache of everything. BUT... They did replace it with 2 rubber balls and an armyman figure.

Ignorance is bliss.

Geocaching is FULL of ignorant , holier than though, people.

But remember that some of the nicest folks you've met , you met through geocaching.

 

Final thoughts....

... If ya can't beat em , Join em.

Just an opinion,

Opalsns

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My turn??

 

I live in an area where we get many tourists come through. Caches go missing often. Travelers are taken and never heard from again. Yet... there are caches out there that have been active for a number of years. Travelers get picked up and taken to wonderful places, like Hawaii, Germany and France. Tourists come in and dump a handful of travelers that have come from afar... like Canada, Washington state and New Zealand.

 

I have lost my share of travelers and had my caches muggled. It's heartbreaking. When I think of the time and money I've spent on this hobby.. well, it's enough to make me feel guilty for days. But I love it and I dont intend to stop.

 

My tips follow:

I make sure that my caches are in low muggle areas.

I experiment in "iffy" areas by leaving a pill bottle rather than an expensive lock n lock.

I write on my cache pages to look out for muggles and to rehide well.

I know that if a cache isn't hidden well, it will not last.

 

I make sure all of my travelers go out with a mission paper AND in a zip lock bag.

All travelers that come my way get a mission statement printed out and placed in a baggie (if not already so fixed).

When I come to a cache with travelers, I move them all. Yes, I take them all. That way, if the cache is muggled.. all 4 travelers won't go missing.

 

All that being said. I think we are seeing an increase in the number of caches disappearing, and the number of travelers escaping. Could it be the new phone aps and more people are cachiing??

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Just remember, if a cache page says "Watch out for muggles" it is, most likely, not a safe place to leave a trackable, and probably not even a safe place for your cache.

We can't blame ALL the missing trackable on cachers. Many are taken by those "muggles", who haven't a clue what they've found.

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Just remember, if a cache page says "Watch out for muggles" it is, most likely, not a safe place to leave a trackable, and probably not even a safe place for your cache.

We can't blame ALL the missing trackable on cachers. Many are taken by those "muggles", who haven't a clue what they've found.

 

As a general rule (in my limited experience), I have found that cache quality goes up farther away from civilization.

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I've spent TONS of money making caches, buying a GPS, coins, etc. I have made some nice caches with great coins, FTF prizes, etc.

 

All I ask is that the finder trades equally, i.e., coin for coin -- yet now I have a new cache pillaged with NOTHING left, not even a stupid plastic alien trinket.

 

I'm done.... it's not fun nor is it fair --- i play by the rules why can't everyone else? In fact I feel COMPELLED to leave much MORE than I take....

 

My caches are premium member caches only --- I did email the pillager and ask that if they cannot play by the rules to refrain from seeking my caches but I doubt that's going to do any good....

 

My travelers are meant to move. You should not be placing a cache that requires them to drop a coin or bug in order to be able to retrieve mine. That is not a requirement for a traveler that I paid for.

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I've spent TONS of money making caches, buying a GPS, coins, etc. I have made some nice caches with great coins, FTF prizes, etc.

 

All I ask is that the finder trades equally, i.e., coin for coin -- yet now I have a new cache pillaged with NOTHING left, not even a stupid plastic alien trinket.

 

I'm done.... it's not fun nor is it fair --- i play by the rules why can't everyone else? In fact I feel COMPELLED to leave much MORE than I take....

 

My caches are premium member caches only --- I did email the pillager and ask that if they cannot play by the rules to refrain from seeking my caches but I doubt that's going to do any good....

 

My travelers are meant to move. You should not be placing a cache that requires them to drop a coin or bug in order to be able to retrieve mine. That is not a requirement for a traveler that I paid for.

 

What do you do when you come across a traveler that asks not to be taken unless you leave one in its place?

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If the OP is taking about the latest cache they hid, I think they're talking about an unactivated geocoin because the only traveling geocoins that were in the cache (2 of them), seem to be accounted for. One in the cache now and one in the hands of a later cache finder.

 

Perhaps the FTF cacher thought it was a FTF prize. In this case, no trade it needed, it's a prize. But then again, there's no mention of there being a FTF prize.

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It's not a rule to take one , leave one, when it comes to travelers, GC.com only suggests it, ButThere ARE rules for the game

And that says to take swag is to replace swag!!!!!

Th OP was talking about not only the coins but the cache being cleaned out as well.

And it's not worth complaing because...

Geocaching.co, and grounspeak don't care. They don't try to help any situation to my recollection, and there have been stalkers and looky loos on here asking," How do you find caches with coins in them?" And some dummy is telling them how to find them.

Groundspeak is raking in the money and making sure you pay for premium accounts, and it doesn't matter , because, Muggles, or as I like to call them...

THIEVES know what to do to find them.

When a traveler is spotted on Ebay , for sale, and a complaint is made, does GC.com do anything to help/?? Nope.

Jeremy started a cool game that has expanded in directions that he never saw coming. Very Few follow the rules.

AND, to say, " Oh Well, It's just a traveler or geocoin", is like GIVING PERMISSION for the muggle to take it.

My travelers were made to travel , too.

SOOooooooo... why aren't they traveling????

Just My Opinion

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I totally sympathize with the swag degradation you've probably experienced. I know lots of people set up caches with really cools swag only to see it, over time, turn into broken plastic trinkets, rocks, and pennies. That's definitely not cool.

 

However, as everyone else has mentioned, travelers (TBs and activated geocoins) aren't swag. You can't expect people to do a one-for-one swap for them, nor should you.

 

I know of several cachers who have posted who actively look for "TB prisons" (which are often used to describe caches with one-for-one or other such trackable "trade rules" in their text) and empty them out on purpose so that no travel bug/coin is left languishing because a cacher who otherwise could have advanced its mission feels like he or she shouldn't pick it up. They do this as a favor to the TB/coins' owners, who (generally) want their items to travel.

 

Don't be angry with people who do this. Remove the one-for-one rule from any caches you might (still) own, if you have it in any of the text (I haven't checked). Your cache, if well-placed and convenient and of a nice size, will become a TB hotel all on its own. If it doesn't, take a look at where it's located for some clues as to why it hasn't become successful.

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<snip>

I make sure all of my travelers go out with a mission paper AND in a zip lock bag.

All travelers that come my way get a mission statement printed out and placed in a baggie (if not already so fixed).

<snip>

 

I've always done that, too! Glad to see I'm not alone. It's too easy for novice players to think they just found some cool 'stuff'. Placing it in a bag with a mission statement gives it a chance, I think....I hope....well, I try anyway....

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i havent placed any caches,, the area i live is packed full of caches almost to the point where its hard to find a spot to put one. because of the rule of how far apart they have to be....

 

but i have a tb that was altered from a goofy cacher to a space ship and scence has stopped travels. and i have quite a few coins out there..not tons but i think theres 1 left moving around. i will not release any more coins.. i go for tbs if i want a traveler.

 

last year i asked for swag for caches for christmas... i took bag fulls of swag to empty caches and refilled them as i found them.. and i still do that but i use my daughters toys that she dosent use or play with and its great..not only am i getting rid of the tons of trinkets she dosent play with but also making a empty or junk cache a cool cache to find again. she takes 1 maybe 2 swag items and we leave a handful quite often! i hope this has made a small difference in caches but its more aimed for the kids. the adults get happy just finding the cache,, at least thats what the game is susposto be about.

 

i do NOT go out looking for coins to move anymore..i used to do that but it took the fun away when it was empty and the travelers were gone. some ppl are rude and not considerate in this game but i think thats everywhere,and so i feel like really theres nothing we can really do to controll others actions...so i choose to keep the game fun as best i can by not seeking coins or tbs. im happy if i find one and if theres none there no big deal.

 

but the sad thing is .. all it would take is 1 really crappy person to ruin a hole area of caches. i think weve been lucky up to this point to still have caches left around to find things in.. because a ton of nanos wouldent be very fun for my 3 yr old.

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When I come to a cache with travelers, I move them all. Yes, I take them all. That way, if the cache is muggled.. all 4 travelers won't go missing.

 

I think that this attitude is as much if not more of a detriment to the traveler game than those who wish to trade one for one in caches. My coin wants to travel east, all you can do it travel west, hypothetically. What good does it do me to have you pick up my coin? Leave it be for the next person who CAN move it to where it wants to be. OR, leave it be so someone else actually gets to pick up a traveler instead of you getting to grab a handful of them at a time since you will be of no help to it anyway.

 

You play your way, cause I'll play mine. I'm not judging or getting angry with anyone about it. I just want to point out that there are different points of view regarding this subject around every corner.

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I totally agree with you!!!!

Archived my caches. Every geocoin and TB I ever released is "missing'.

Caches , stolen, even the 2 missions I have going around, for a year, have all of a sudden, Come up missing.????

One of the cachers that was sent the mission, doesn't log the geocoins they find in caches untill their good and ready, but they didn't recieve the mission??? How would I ever know.

A few of us here had to cover for some cachers that signed up and recieved missions, then all of a sudden, they can't Afford to re send the missions back out?!?!

One of my missions went missing and after MONTHS of emailing them and trying to call them, they had to be snail mailed to finally get the...

"Life Happens" response. BULL++++.

Oh and I had a cache , in my yard, I kept full of treats for young and old alike.checked it everyday to keep it full. A family came in and while the parents were signing in, their lovely little children raped the cache of everything. BUT... They did replace it with 2 rubber balls and an armyman figure.

Ignorance is bliss.

Geocaching is FULL of ignorant , holier than though, people.

But remember that some of the nicest folks you've met , you met through geocaching.

 

 

Wow! get out of my head! :anibad: I had to read this twice and make sure I didn't write this or was being quoted on several points... This is the exact reason I strated creating difficult puzzle caches, to make the cacher work for anything they feel they must steal from my caches, and they aren't broken mctoys and cheap mardi gras beads after the first 10 finders...

 

...the burr under my saddle lately revolves around hiding difficult caches and through the "a smiley at all costs" attitude, once one person finds it, or solves the puzzle, or finds any shortcut they can, I end up with 30 "found it" logs...

 

Lately I've been placing micros until everyone locally gets the find and then going back and replacing it with a large after a few month... it seems to increase the life of the cache quality and swag I generously place in them...

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When I come to a cache with travelers, I move them all. Yes, I take them all. That way, if the cache is muggled.. all 4 travelers won't go missing.

 

I think that this attitude is as much if not more of a detriment to the traveler game than those who wish to trade one for one in caches. My coin wants to travel east, all you can do it travel west, hypothetically. What good does it do me to have you pick up my coin? Leave it be for the next person who CAN move it to where it wants to be. OR, leave it be so someone else actually gets to pick up a traveler instead of you getting to grab a handful of them at a time since you will be of no help to it anyway.

 

You play your way, cause I'll play mine. I'm not judging or getting angry with anyone about it. I just want to point out that there are different points of view regarding this subject around every corner.

 

As I have watched with my own travelers (check to see how many I have released.. quite a few.. not to mention the travelers I have given away at meetings to other cachers), ANY movement is good movement. Sometimes a traveler has to go East to be picked up by someone going West. Yeah, I can leave it in the cache for someone going East to pick up.. but before that happens, someone may muggle the cache and not log any of the travelers. At least I'm getting them moved and not muggling them. That's my point.

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Well said, Opalsns. I agree that this game has taken directions that were never foreseen. My argument recently is that with the new "trial" phone aps, people are running out, finding a cache or two, taking everything they want and not logging a thing. One of my caches was recently signed with names like, Erin, Suze, Tom ... NOT geo names. The travelers were gone and not logged. Who were these people?? My guess is that they are trying out their new phone ap. I'm afraid we are placing caches, spending the money on them, the time and effort and not enough is being done by Groundspeak to protect the game. There, I said it. It would suit me fine if everyone had to pay to play.

 

 

It's not a rule to take one , leave one, when it comes to travelers, GC.com only suggests it, ButThere ARE rules for the game

And that says to take swag is to replace swag!!!!!

Th OP was talking about not only the coins but the cache being cleaned out as well.

And it's not worth complaing because...

Geocaching.co, and grounspeak don't care. They don't try to help any situation to my recollection, and there have been stalkers and looky loos on here asking," How do you find caches with coins in them?" And some dummy is telling them how to find them.

Groundspeak is raking in the money and making sure you pay for premium accounts, and it doesn't matter , because, Muggles, or as I like to call them...

THIEVES know what to do to find them.

When a traveler is spotted on Ebay , for sale, and a complaint is made, does GC.com do anything to help/?? Nope.

Jeremy started a cool game that has expanded in directions that he never saw coming. Very Few follow the rules.

AND, to say, " Oh Well, It's just a traveler or geocoin", is like GIVING PERMISSION for the muggle to take it.

My travelers were made to travel , too.

SOOooooooo... why aren't they traveling????

Just My Opinion

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I'm almost scared to ask this question, but I think it has a bearing on this post...

 

Why does anyone spend money on coins and stick them in a cache?

 

Even more than a TB (which can be a boring dogtag attached to a brick), a nicely designed geocoin simply screams out to be stolen.

They sell wallets for geocoins at meetings, who spends hundreds on coins that have no value?

Does someone believe a geocacher is just a numismatic that likes the odd walk?

 

And even if a GC travels, thats your money out there, isn't it?

Would you put a 10 dollar bill into a cache and hope that people would move it from cache to cache?

Isn't using a coin as a traveller tantamount to leaving your wallet in the front garden?

 

Don't shout.. I just don't get it...

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I'm almost scared to ask this question, but I think it has a bearing on this post...

 

Why does anyone spend money on coins and stick them in a cache?

 

Even more than a TB (which can be a boring dogtag attached to a brick), a nicely designed geocoin simply screams out to be stolen.

They sell wallets for geocoins at meetings, who spends hundreds on coins that have no value?

Does someone believe a geocacher is just a numismatic that likes the odd walk?

 

And even if a GC travels, thats your money out there, isn't it?

Would you put a 10 dollar bill into a cache and hope that people would move it from cache to cache?

Isn't using a coin as a traveller tantamount to leaving your wallet in the front garden?

 

Don't shout.. I just don't get it...

 

I think that there are a number of reasons that people put coins in caches, but here is my personal list:

 

I want to follow the coins by e-mail as they travel around

I want to be part of something on a national and international scale

I want to share the joy of finding a coin in a cache with other people

 

The last reason is really the most important. It is fun to find quality items in a cache, but someone has to take the risk and actually buy the coins. I sympathize with the people who complain that many go missing quickly, but many also travel for years. If 100% of the coins went missing within a week, I would stop putting them in caches. The missing coins are just a price that must be paid for something like geocaching to exist.

 

Here is the really strange part. While I much prefer that the coins be taken and placed in another cache by honest people, I am not so bothered by the coins going to jerks. As I have written many times. I see the coins as lasting hundreds of years and the jerks are just the first of many owners. Maybe my coins are going to someone wonderful in 75 or 150 years. Truth be told, even jerks deserve a little unearned love once in a while.

 

Here is another way of looking at all of this. I want to live in a magical world where beautiful things are found in unexpected places. I want to live in a world where people trust one another to do the right thing and most people do. I want to live in a world where people spend thousands of dollars to put little tiny works of art under staircases and in the earth so children can find them on a brisk sunny afternoon.

 

I do live in that world and I helped bring it into being.

Edited by GregsonVaux
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In my opinion coins as a traveler fail the first rule of Snoogans' Tb Longevity Clinic.

 

While I expect people to move them along, that's just what happens once they are placed in a cache.

 

Never release anything you are not willing to lose. I don't post that over and over because I think it's a handy response. I mean it.

 

You can release travelers that survive for years. You can release travelers that won't make you feel like you've wasted your money should they go missing. It does require an understanding and the acceptance that yeah you have to have patience and at worst, start all over again, but even starting over puts you back into the best part of travelers - sharing it with others.

 

I'm currently working on getting a bug back in circulation that's been out there for six years. If I finally decide that it's a lost cause I'm going to re-release it. I have a bug that went missing after three months, same deal.

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