few Coins and Trackables... questions to clear up for me.

[+Cachesaurous]

Hello

I am an old new player, I love the Trackables attached to things and I really think the GeoCoin is amazing! 

When you find a Geocoin (I have not yet) you catch and release but i was with some one and i sure wanted to keep that coin, im sure we all do at time, so do players save this find? a personal photos? or is the trackable page on GC enough for everyone? I heard on a podcast people keep books but I am not sure what that means.  Also in regards to coins when i hear people collect them they are purchasing and keeping I assume or are there coins in the wild intended to keep?  I personally got a retried geocachers possessions and they had 3 new First to FInd Coins.  One of them is trackable.  How do I use this, Is it registered and given to the first person who finds and thats it or does it move on? or is that mainly a personal keep coin since i actually own it? 

I have a Few sets of tags and I cannot wait to set them in the wild, i would prefer that they are only logged by people who find them then just discover them via an internet leak, is this something I should bother being concerned about? 

Thank you I appreciate the discussion and the oppertunty to talk about these things,  its really not nice out side deep snow and cold here so when the spring comes I want to be ready to produce quality caches and ensure I am caching trackables and other longs properly and fully.

I appreciate you time in clearing this up for me i find a conversation and taking a seperate chat is very helpful and while im talking on it i get some great dialogue and learn better terms to search more specifics 

[+kunarion]

Geocoins and “Travel Bug” dogtags are called “trackable items”, and are treated the same by the site. “Travel Bug” is a registered trademark of Groundspeak and a particular dogtag style with the “barcode bug” icon online. Geocoins have special icons for each set.  There are Geocoin tags.  You can attach an item to a Geocoin just like you can with a tag, but some are hard to drill without destroying them, so you must get creative at times if you wish to do that.

If you buy your own Geocoins, you can place them in coin books for display at events. You must decide if you wish them to be logged on the site and if so, the coins must be activated by you first.  Keep such a "coin book" of your valued coins in your possession at all times.  Conceal their "tracking numbers" if you don't want them logged at all.  There is no requirement to "activate" your coins online, and if you ever sell one or give it as a gift, it's cool that the item is "unactivated".  To me, it seems like a gift that's "new", "unused".

If you find a trackable in a cache, rest assured that it was placed for travel to be dropped into another cache. Type the tracking number into the web site, and look at the cache logs.  Just a little research will tell you what its deal is.  You will find mistakes in the process. Many people, intending that a trackable will travel, place it without properly activating or logging it.  Believe it or not, some people don't know how trackables work.

It is extremely rare to find one that is a gift for you, in which case, there is a note with it that “this is a gift for you” or something like that, and also you see that it's complete in its new coin packet from the store. It's pretty much impossible to accidentally pocket a coveted coin due to not knowing that it's not yours to keep.  Notice that the kept coin also vanishes from the universe, conveniently unmentioned by the person who feels fully justified to keep it.  It would be good if Groundspeak would include an etiquette section that "If you take anything to keep, always mention clearly in the appropriate logs, exactly what you took", but they don't. Go figure.

Log it when found. But look at the trackable's goal. Owners can make pretty much any "goal", be sure you read what it is. It may be unlike the typical "move to cache, place it and log it". But also beware that Groundspeak uses the English language in a strange way. For example, "Visit" to rational humans means "place it into the next cache and log the drop". That is, if the trackable's Goal says "I want to visit caches all over the world", 99.9% of the time that means to "Place it into a cache, the next person picks it up, places it in a cache, going around the world like that, one cache at a time". "Visit" in Groundspeak's strange language means "keep the trackable forever and make a buh-zillion logs with no story, no photo, no evidence that it was even anywhere near a Geocache, a tag that  you likely lost years ago". People arrive in these Forums horrified to find that actual Geocachers hoard others' coins and publicly log the kidnapping, and never let them go. I don't like that, either. It's OK if that's the Goal, but it must be very clearly defined as the Goal, or you don't do that. Groundspeak should make it clear that this not to occur, but they don't. And Groundspeak uses other terms in a confusing way that gets trackables lost. Yeah. Go figure.

Trackables can be adopted from an owner to another player. This would be a special situation, such as when someone activated a trackable and then wants to transfer it to someone else. It's best if you may want to do that, to not “activate” it at all, since the new owner may not want to put it into the game.  If you are given a bag of trackables by the owner, he may choose to adopt them to you.

In another rare instance, you can keep and place a trackable into your online “Collection”, which is merely a database for honest cachers to organize Geocoins. But if it's owned by someone else, they will provide you clear instruction about the exchange, so I don't need to go into possibilities. It's all done above-board, so there's no confusion about who has the coin and who owns it. If the owner asks you to return the coin to play, you comply.  Do not checkmark any boxes for the Collection just to see what happens.  Be sure you have a defined plan first.  The Collection is a tool with a specific purpose.  Most cachers don't need to mess with it at all.  And, yeah, the words "Collection" and "Collectible" are defined in a whole new way by Groundspeak.  Go figure.

I've hand-engraved my cacher name into some Geocoins I placed, so the thief always sees who owns it. They know it belongs to someone else, it's not actually confusing to anybody, with or without engraved names. So don't be fooled that “they can't figure it out”. Because they can, and did. But you know that when you place a trackable, it's in the wind. Enjoy the ride.  One cool thing is, the solid metal Geocoin in fact occupies space in this dimension.  Almost like it's "trackable" or something .  So it can turn up again someday, if only for a moment.

There is a newer idea to place a lot of laminated photocopies or whatever, instead of the actual coin (maybe it was stolen). If possible, log and move those when found. There are many ways to use trackables besides placing them in caches, and those ways may cause you to have the item in play for many years without issue.  To keep a nice coin you own, well... keep it.

I place just one “copy” in play at a time, and it's a metal or plastic tag (attached to an item, usually), never just laminated paper. Your mileage may vary.

 

Further reading:

Travel Bug FAQ
Types of Trackables
Log a Trackable
Move Trackables
Trackable Collections

 

 

Edited February 13, 2018 by kunarion

[+kunarion]

Double post, sorry.

Edited February 13, 2018 by kunarion

[+cerberus1]

3 hours ago, Caitandjay23 said:

When you find a Geocoin (I have not yet) you catch and release but i was with some one and i sure wanted to keep that coin, im sure we all do at time, so do players save this find? a personal photos? or is the trackable page on GC enough for everyone? I heard on a podcast people keep books but I am not sure what that means.  Also in regards to coins when i hear people collect them they are purchasing and keeping I assume or are there coins in the wild intended to keep?  I personally got a retried geocachers possessions and they had 3 new First to FInd Coins.  One of them is trackable.  How do I use this, Is it registered and given to the first person who finds and thats it or does it move on? or is that mainly a personal keep coin since i actually own it? 

I have a Few sets of tags and I cannot wait to set them in the wild, i would prefer that they are only logged by people who find them then just discover them via an internet leak, is this something I should bother being concerned about? 

Thank you I appreciate the discussion and the oppertunty to talk about these things,  its really not nice out side deep snow and cold here so when the spring comes I want to be ready to produce quality caches and ensure I am caching trackables and other longs properly and fully.

I appreciate you time in clearing this up for me i find a conversation and taking a seperate chat is very helpful and while im talking on it i get some great dialogue and learn better terms to search more specifics 

A geocoin is just like any other trackable, and should be traveling cache-to-cache.  They belong to someone.

The other 2/3rds has over 200 activated geocoins that she "collects" in a coin book, like any other  numismatists. She won't be sending them out to be stolen like the dozen or so "lost" already.

I have a 100 or so left that are unactivated, and often leave them in "good hike" caches as swag, maybe to "coax" someone to walk a bit too.  It's clearly written on the coin holder that it's unactivated and meant as swag.  Trackables shouldn't be kept otherwise...  I won't send out the couple activated left, knowing they'll go bye-bye, maybe sold on ebay...

If I was to send out another coin to travel, I'd have a poker chip or similar proxy made with the code included, and just have a pic of it (with no visible code of course) on the trackable's page.  That way that shiny coin stays safe at home.  A finder gets the same icon, whether it's the actual coin or a proxy...

If I Discover a coin, it's to let the TO know that their trackable's either safe in the cache listed, or it's not.  All the errors we've seen lately, a Discover log by me  helps the TO .  Realize that a Discover from one hitting numbers for codes, or spotting a pic with the code on it is completely different.  If a Discover from one who "fake logged" it bothers you, simply delete it.

[+kunarion]

26 minutes ago, cerberus1 said:

The other 2/3rds has over 200 activated geocoins that she "collects" in a coin book, like any other  numismatists. She won't be sending them out to be stolen like the dozen or so "lost" already.

 

I know about a cacher who passed her coin binder around at a small Event, everyone knew each other, and when she got the book back, one of the nicest coins was gone.  I'd bet that Event suddenly became a leetle bit uncomfortable.

[+cerberus1]

11 minutes ago, kunarion said:

I know about a cacher who passed her coin binder around at a small Event, everyone knew each other, and when she got the book back, one of the nicest coins was gone.  I'd bet that Event suddenly became a leetle bit uncomfortable.

Don't remember if I PMd you about that or not, but yeah, she had it happen at a small event once.   We've cached numerous times with all there, and all were on her "PAF" list as well.  Something about shiny things I guess...

[+kunarion]

49 minutes ago, cerberus1 said:

Don't remember if I PMd you about that or not, but yeah, she had it happen at a small event once.   We've cached numerous times with all there, and all were on her "PAF" list as well.  Something about shiny things I guess...

 

There is a "show us your cool coins" Event coming up locally.  Yeah, and then I remember that story . 

So far, I've had pretty good results by keeping all of mine in a big closed ammo box at home.

[+WarNinjas]

12 hours ago, kunarion said:

 

I know about a cacher who passed her coin binder around at a small Event, everyone knew each other, and when she got the book back, one of the nicest coins was gone.  I'd bet that Event suddenly became a leetle bit uncomfortable.

That is horrible! >:(