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pathtags?

snakedoctor919

By snakedoctor919
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snakedoctor919

snakedoctor919

Posted
Posted

I am a relative newcomer, joined in Mar. 2011. I keep seeing and hearing about these disks called pathtags. Half the people I talk to think they are great. The other half tell me they are ignored by geocaching.com. What is the deal? Are they a go or no go? Help please! Thank you.

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knowschad

knowschad

Posted
Posted (edited)

I am a relative newcomer, joined in Mar. 2011. I keep seeing and hearing about these disks called pathtags. Half the people I talk to think they are great. The other half tell me they are ignored by geocaching.com. What is the deal? Are they a go or no go? Help please! Thank you.

 

Before your thread gets locked for mentioning a competing product***, may I suggest you do a Google search for "pathtag" and find their forum?

 

They can not be logged on geocaching.com, and most pathtag owners consider them to be collectable/tradeable.

 

*** Not your fault, and you are hardly the first and won't be the last

 

 

.

Edited by knowschad
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Panther&Pine

+Panther&Pine

Posted
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They are actively ignored by GS. This thread will probably be locked.

Treat any tags you find as SWAG- trade up or even if you take one. They are about 1$.

 

Pathtags have to be logged on their own site and that is why most cachers don't care for them.

 

I'd like to have some made at some point.

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Clan Riffster

Clan Riffster

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No worries, Doc! Not much controversy either, to tell the truth. The only real issue is that the company you named is in direct competition with Groundspeak, and as such, TPTB don't like them mentioned in the forums, or on cache pages. As stated earlier, they are more of a swag item than a trackable, and they are a lot cheaper to get made than a true geocoin.

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knowschad

knowschad

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Posted

I still feel like if we're allowed to talk about that other site, but only in the one thread and we can talk about wooden nickels in the geocoin forums, why not have ONE thread about pathtags. The topic comes up often enough.

I agree that it not only seems silly, but makes Groundspeak look bad.

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Gitchee-Gummee

+Gitchee-Gummee

Posted
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Just to keep everyone guessing, I am moving this out of the Geocaching Topics forum rather than closing the thread.

...and just who was it that said moderators don't have a humorous bone.....?

 

The aforementioned item is sort of neat (especially when you have your own), but they are SWAG and/or trade-able items. More or less are a "super-duper" sig item -- substantially better than a home computer-printed calling card! Not per se trackable.

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Fianccetto

+Fianccetto

Posted
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It would help if we could discuss them here. I bought a path tag online (second hand) which said it was 'trackable' and I mistakenly thought it was a new kind of micro coin. I was pretty annoyed to find it wasn't what I would consider trackable, and the nearest equivalent would be something like someone making hundreds of mini signature tags/micros all with the same number and activating them all under their own account, and not being able to adopt them, so never being able to properly own it. (Although, unlike geocoins, they are considered the type of swag you can collect if you find them in a cache.)

 

The one I bought I put in our cache and someone who collects them picked it up. I had looked at their site, but it was too much effort to register there just to track it.

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Manville Possum

+Manville Possum

Posted
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I still feel like if we're allowed to talk about that other site, but only in the one thread and we can talk about wooden nickels in the geocoin forums, why not have ONE thread about pathtags. The topic comes up often enough.

The mascot of one other sites has his own pathtag. :anitongue: I collect pathtags and we even have one of our own. They are very much part of geocaching. Trackable SWAG items that you can keep. :D

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Icenians

+Icenians

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The one I bought I put in our cache and someone who collects them picked it up. I had looked at their site, but it was too much effort to register there just to track it.

 

You can't track 'it'. The tracking is really just something to tell the owner where a tag DESIGN ended up. You can't track an individual tag.

 

They are just a signature item for people to collect and swap that has a number allowing the owner to see how their tag spread out.

 

It really baffles me how GC could consider them in any way anything like competition but then I gave up trying to fathom Groundspeak out a long time ago.

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Fianccetto

+Fianccetto

Posted
Posted

The one I bought I put in our cache and someone who collects them picked it up. I had looked at their site, but it was too much effort to register there just to track it.

 

You can't track 'it'. The tracking is really just something to tell the owner where a tag DESIGN ended up. You can't track an individual tag.

 

They are just a signature item for people to collect and swap that has a number allowing the owner to see how their tag spread out.

 

It really baffles me how GC could consider them in any way anything like competition but then I gave up trying to fathom Groundspeak out a long time ago.

 

Thanks for the clarification. They are no competition, certainly, but they are popular as signature items. Maybe we could have a signature item section, separate from the trackables and geocoins. It doesn't help that this thread gets put into the travel bug section, imo.

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Icenians

+Icenians

Posted
Posted

Maybe we could have a signature item section, separate from the trackables and geocoins. It doesn't help that this thread gets put into the travel bug section, imo.

 

Couldn't agree more. They are just signature trade items that happen to have a website geared up for trading them. Putting them in with trackables or coins and locking threads about them just makes GC look silly and uninformed about what they actually are. It also perpetuates the myth that they are trackable like a coin or TB on another site. Still, i'll keep trading and dropping them off in caches I like.

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Icenians

+Icenians

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Posted

Just to keep everyone guessing, I am moving this out of the Geocaching Topics forum rather than closing the thread.

 

Just out of interest, why the Travel Bug section? These are not travel bugs nor are they meant to travel. They are just a signature item.

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Fianccetto

+Fianccetto

Posted
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In otherwords, to keep it simple, one should stick to cards or wooden tokens ("nickels") as inexpensive signature "calling cards"?

No, there's a huge variety of sig items that are great, including path tags. I just resented paying what I would pay for a small geocoin for one (from someone who just found it in a cache, or was given it) plus international postage. <_< Path tags themselves are fine as a sig item or swag, but as they are metal and look a bit like micro coins with a hole, that is sometimes exploited by some people who want to make a quick quid/fast buck.

 

So in other words, I'd say it is not ok to sell someone else's path tag (as anything other than second hand swag).

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Gitchee-Gummee

+Gitchee-Gummee

Posted
Posted

In otherwords, to keep it simple, one should stick to cards or wooden tokens ("nickels") as inexpensive signature "calling cards"?

No, there's a huge variety of sig items that are great, including path tags. I just resented paying what I would pay for a small geocoin for one (from someone who just found it in a cache, or was given it) plus international postage. <_< Path tags themselves are fine as a sig item or swag, but as they are metal and look a bit like micro coins with a hole, that is sometimes exploited by some people who want to make a quick quid/fast buck.

 

So in other words, I'd say it is not ok to sell someone else's path tag (as anything other than second hand swag).

Actually there are some really nice Pathtags out there. And no..... cards and wooden nickels don't hold a candle to these, as signature items. It's your own design, and you place them, trade them, or simply hand them out. They don't get damp and mouldy, they don't smell of mildew, and they don't fall into a mushy mess after a while. But you use whatever you want as a sig item.

 

Yes, paying for one as another post says is a rip. I guess "buyer beware" means as much today as ever. I am sorry to see this type of activity related to geocaching. BTW -- I have a bridge to sell.....

 

Not really trackable, as we understand it, your collection will display where you find them, or where others find yours, etc.

 

They can be interesting and do add a touch of class to what seems be the redundant contents of degraded caches.

 

My 2¢

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Chrysalides

+Chrysalides

Posted
Posted (edited)
Just to keep everyone guessing, I am moving this out of the Geocaching Topics forum rather than closing the thread.

You're just making the mod for the travel bug forums close it because it is not a travel bug :ph34r:

 

What would be amusing is if Eartha sent this back to the geocaching forum, because this is trade item....

 

If anyone from Groundspeak is reading this, just let me add that I don't think this is a competing product. It's a sigitem, sort of like wooden nickels. Groundspeak makes money from (among other things) selling tracking #s for coins. While superficially they may be the same, in reality they are a very different beast. Of course, it is your business, and you should run it as you see fit. But please don't be draconian and alienate your users. Many of us are avid geocachers, love the tags, and also buy and collect coins.

Edited by Chrysalides
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Chrysalides

+Chrysalides

Posted
Posted
They don't get damp and mouldy, they don't smell of mildew, and they don't fall into a mushy mess after a while.

They have an iron core, and they do rust. I found one unfortunate pathtag that was in a container that leaked and filled with water. When I put out mine, I put them in ziplocs.

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RhinoInAToga

+RhinoInAToga

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We were really happy to have found that little hidden bit of geocaching. We thought that it was pretty cool to be able to collect such a nice sig item from different cachers.

It just kind of stinks when you find your first one & go to log it in as a trackable because you don't know what it is, because there's no info on this site about them. Then you meander on in to the forums thinking, "I'm a newbie, & they are so helpful with 'noobs' there. They can help me out.."

...Then you get the forum equivalent of a cold shoulder.

 

Unless, of course, you're lucky enough to have a couple kind souls get in before the lockdown & tell you at least where to find out about them, & to warn you about the geoslap coming your way...

This happened to us about a month ago. You are not alone. Or maybe you are...because this thread's still alive lol

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KNAPAHOLIC

+KNAPAHOLIC

Posted
Posted

They are actively ignored by GS. This thread will probably be locked.

Treat any tags you find as SWAG- trade up or even if you take one. They are about 1$.

 

Pathtags have to be logged on their own site and that is why most cachers don't care for them.

 

I'd like to have some made at some point.

"most cachers don't care for them" I guess things may vary from region to region, but around here (NW PA) most everyone loves them.

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CluelessnLuV

+CluelessnLuV

Posted
Posted

We have come across before a couple Geocoins that also incorporated Pathtags in it. Geocoins had a slot in it with a magnet that pathtag fit snugly in and stayed there quite well. One of those i think was caught red-handed Geocoin/pathtag combo and another one was someone's othe personal California-Pennsylvania Geocoin/Pathtag combo... Didn't realize the first time that the coin had a pathtag in it until noticed that little hole that all pathtags have and used a little tool to pull it from it's magnet. thought those were cool little combos.

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LEGO

+LEGO

Posted
Posted
Treat any tags you find as SWAG- trade up or even if you take one. They are about 1$.

To see how close that estimate is, while viewing someone's pathtag collection, point to one you like and offer a dollar for it.

 

+1

 

My avatar on this post is my pathtag design, and not only did they cost me more than a buck each, they are worth more than that to me...

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t4e

+t4e

Posted
Posted
Treat any tags you find as SWAG- trade up or even if you take one. They are about 1$.

To see how close that estimate is, while viewing someone's pathtag collection, point to one you like and offer a dollar for it.

 

+1

 

My avatar on this post is my pathtag design, and not only did they cost me more than a buck each, they are worth more than that to me...

 

its more than a buck for a new design, but refills are about a buck...personally, yes they are priceless :D

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Panther&Pine

+Panther&Pine

Posted
Posted
Treat any tags you find as SWAG- trade up or even if you take one. They are about 1$.

To see how close that estimate is, while viewing someone's pathtag collection, point to one you like and offer a dollar for it.

 

+1

 

My avatar on this post is my pathtag design, and not only did they cost me more than a buck each, they are worth more than that to me...

 

its more than a buck for a new design, but refills are about a buck...personally, yes they are priceless :D

Very true. I've paid more then a dollar for a pathtag.

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Eartha

+Eartha

Posted
Posted

At least the OP was forewarned.

 

This thread is being closed, because pathtags are not trackable on geocaching.com. They have their own website and forums, to keep their history. Please refer to that for more information.

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