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Trading up?


germanybert

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I was just reading the recent thread about a FTFer taking 75% of the swag from a cache.

 

One of the main themes is that you should always "trade up".

 

I really hope this becomes a rule because I wanna be the person who finds a new car or even a house in the cache!

 

But seriously, is the swag really all that important? Most of the stuff I find in caches is junk not worth trading for. I even find candy, cough drops, and food in them! Why would anyone beleive that someone else would take the candy, cough drops, tea bags, or food left by a stranger and eat it?

 

One person stated that it was sad that the owners stuff got stolen. I don't get that since once you put it in the cache it is pretty much public property.

 

I am perfectly happy finding a cache without swag in it. I'm sure that I'm not the only one of this opinion, or am I?

Edited by GermanyBert
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You find junk, as most people don't trade up. I try to improve the swag in any cache I visit, and I try to get my caches stocked with decent stuff. Nothing huge, or worth a ton of money, just things that someone might be happy to pick up. It's part of the hobby in my opinion. So far, I've never picked up anything myself. My nieces and nephews have picked up a small toy or two, and I traded something I thought was a higher quality item each time, and always drop something in any cache with room.

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One person stated that it was sad that the owners stuff got stolen. I don't get that since once you put it in the cache it is pretty much public property.

Newspaper boxes are left unattended in public places. By your logic I can put in my 50 cents to open it then take all the papers because "it is pretty much public property".

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One of the main themes is that you should always "trade up".

 

I really hope this becomes a rule because I wanna be the person who finds a new car or even a house in the cache!

And I wanna see you trade up for it. :anibad:

 

Most of the stuff I find in caches is junk not worth trading for. I even find candy, cough drops, and food in them! Why would anyone beleive that someone else would take the candy, cough drops, tea bags, or food left by a stranger and eat it?

The people who "trade" by adding trash are obviously not playing the game right. Often they are neighbor kids, not Geocachers, and the stuff they put into the container is NOT intended to be a pleasant surprise. NEVER "trade up" in a corrupted cache of trash (just leave it as is) unless you want to give more nice stuff to non-cachers.

 

Food should be discarded -- make a NM log for the Cache Owner. But you don't ever have to take or trade anything, regardless of the contents.

Edited by kunarion
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A cache can not compare to a mail box at all. Mailboxes are private property and it is a federal offense to remove mail from them.

Not a mailbox, a newspaper box.

 

Newspaper boxes are exactly like geocaches. They're owned by someone, left unattended in public places, and there's a request that you trade 50 cents for one newspaper.

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I was just reading the recent thread about a FTFer taking 75% of the swag from a cache.

No proof they did, and several possible 'other' options listed.

Be careful you don't add to the 'He's guilty' by repeating it here.

 

As for edibles in the cache, caches can be found by muggles, who have heard or read about the 'take something, leave something' so leave what they have in their pockets -Sweets, cough drops, raffle ticket...

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A cache can not compare to a mail box at all. Mailboxes are private property and it is a federal offense to remove mail from them.

Not a mailbox, a newspaper box.

 

Newspaper boxes are exactly like geocaches. They're owned by someone, left unattended in public places, and there's a request that you trade 50 cents for one newspaper.

 

Newspaper boxes are licensed, there is a contractual agreement, there are laws)ordinances). To the best of my knowledge a Geocache is typically "personal property"

and not a vending device or an amusement contraption. There is no contractual agreement.

 

There is a contractual agreement for a geocache...

 

to place a cache you have to have permission from the property owner, all land is private property as it is owned by someone, either an individual, government, or company. If you buy a piece of land and allow everyone to trek on it, it is not public property, it is private property open for public use. You may or may not enforce or post rules for that land, but that does not make it public. In addition to place a cache, geocaching.com says you have an agreement or contract that you have the land owners permission to place the cache, that you will maintain it for the long term, and if it is placed on gov't land, you have the proper paperwork for it to be placed. The view of what is public and private land is blurred and open to individual interpretation.

 

Under this assumption, a geocache has a contractual agreement and is licensed to a degree.

 

In regards to the topic of the original post, The general concept is trade up or trade even, not just trade up. I am familiar with that thread as I have a few posts there too. I try to follow the rule of trade up or trade even or dont trade at all. Yes it is conceivable that if everyone trades up, you could end up with a car, house, or other high value item, but I believe that it is unlikely as economics will play a role and there will be an unofficial value limit reached where trade up would stop and trade even will take over.

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Yes it is conceivable that if everyone trades up, you could end up with a car, house, or other high value item, but I believe that it is unlikely as economics will play a role and there will be an unofficial value limit reached where trade up would stop and trade even will take over.

One of the most common problems in Geocaching is finding everything in containers to be extremely valuable. :laughing:

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it would be nice for kids to find decent stuff

But they did. Well, the first kids did.

 

Every time I take my 5-year-old granddaughter out caching she always finds treasures that make her happy. Last Monday she made a 4 for 4 trade at one cache alone. I just make sure there are regular size caches in the mix.

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Recently, I got a new cache notification on my phone that was close by. Even though it had been published for a couple of hours before I received the notification (comcast email and sprint phones are a cruddy mix) I went for the FTF anyway.

 

I almost never hit a cache on the day of publication and there are pretty much always numerous finds by the time I do go after one. I know what the typical swag in my area is like after numerous finds, but I've never really experienced a fresh cache (other than my own) so I was excited to see how other locals stocked theirs initially.

 

I got there to find a sizable container (about the same volume as a .50 cal ammo can), that was completely empty except for a log book, and yeah, it was blank. As I signed the log, I couldn't help but wonder if the CO hid it empty or if someone else got there first and cleaned it out. Then I got to thinking about what the STF was going to think. Were they going to think that I cleaned out the cache?

 

I never knew the answer, but to me the cache does illustrate the epitome of "trade even or trade up". As far as I know, the cache started off empty, but several recent logs mention that items were traded. No matter how crappy the swag in this cache might be at this point, it has definitely increased over time rather than decreased.

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Yes it is conceivable that if everyone trades up, you could end up with a car, house, or other high value item, but I believe that it is unlikely as economics will play a role and there will be an unofficial value limit reached where trade up would stop and trade even will take over.

 

http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/

 

Kyle MacDonald has successfully traded one red paperclip for a house.

 

Of course, the tricky part was finding people to trade with who had something he wanted, and wanted something he had. Leaving a box in the woods is not a good way to do that. There is no limit to this process; the house could be traded for a slightly better house, and that house for another house, and that house for two houses, and so on, until you trade for a private island. If you can find enough people willing to trade, there is no limit.

 

Economics already did play its role, and the unofficial value limit for geocaches was reached: about $5 on a good day. There is no incentive to trade "up" with a box in the woods.

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While I rarely take things from caches (other than TBs or coins), I always try to leave something in return. Even though I don't have kids I like to imagine children out caching with parents and getting really excited to find what treasures a cache might hold. So stopping by a drugstore and picking up some mini Playdoh containers or bouncy balls is something I've started to do recently so I have fun tradeables with me. I'll also leave ocean treasures: shells, beach glass, etc. since it's something that connects me and what I love to the caches I visit. When I find a cache where the majority of the items inside are garbage (ticket stubs, condoms, tampons, cough drops, etc) I'll usually clean out the undesirables and leave a few extra things in return, just so the next person has a few things to choose from.

 

The only times I won't leave anything behind is (1) when the cache is too small to hold anything other than the log, or (2) when it's obvious to me that the cache location is known by many non-geocachers who obviously check and remove things. Though even then I'll occasionally leave beach glass.

Edited by redwoodkestrel
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Recently, I got a new cache notification on my phone that was close by. Even though it had been published for a couple of hours before I received the notification (comcast email and sprint phones are a cruddy mix) I went for the FTF anyway.

 

I almost never hit a cache on the day of publication and there are pretty much always numerous finds by the time I do go after one. I know what the typical swag in my area is like after numerous finds, but I've never really experienced a fresh cache (other than my own) so I was excited to see how other locals stocked theirs initially.

 

I got there to find a sizable container (about the same volume as a .50 cal ammo can), that was completely empty except for a log book, and yeah, it was blank. As I signed the log, I couldn't help but wonder if the CO hid it empty or if someone else got there first and cleaned it out. Then I got to thinking about what the STF was going to think. Were they going to think that I cleaned out the cache?

 

I never knew the answer, but to me the cache does illustrate the epitome of "trade even or trade up". As far as I know, the cache started off empty, but several recent logs mention that items were traded. No matter how crappy the swag in this cache might be at this point, it has definitely increased over time rather than decreased.

 

I've seen this myself.

 

"Thanks for all the empty space I can fill up for you!"

 

I usually do leave a few items...think of the children!

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