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First Hide


adahen

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Hi all, I know this has been on the forum for a bit. The ones I found are quite old, and was thinking that resurrecting the subject might bring some more light on it.

I have now 298 finds. Some great, some not so much. Enjoyed almost every single one. Recently we went to Geocoinfest 2019 in Manchester. With all the joy and raffle we got in a possession of various kinds of containers - from nano, bison tube to a flask size. I was thinking about hide for some time. I started the game 4 months ago and there a few caches around with lots of DNF and no response from CO for years now. I would like to do my first hide easy enough but, as my tendency to overthinking stuff, not to make something what will get muggled or constantly criticized, or worst, never attempted to find. I thought about magnetic nano behind street sign for a start. There is a very nice little park nearby would be nice for a camo bison on a tree but I think, I would need a permission here. Any advice from experienced fellows?

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5 minutes ago, adahen said:

I thought about magnetic nano behind street sign for a start. There is a very nice little park nearby would be nice for a camo bison on a tree but I think, I would need a permission here. Any advice from experienced fellows?

 

Which one you would prefer when you are seeking a cache yourself? Seekers will notice when you have put effort to your cache design. Nano behind a street sign it almost a zero effort cache.

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Blinkers and other nano-caches are problematic. On the one hand, they're most useful in extremely busy places where larger caches wouldn't survive. On the other hand, their logs are tiny and tend to need replacement (owner maintenance) frequently when they're in extremely busy places.

 

One blinker that I can think of is in a nearby small park. Over the years, I've seen a series of short-lived caches placed in that park. They just haven't survived. Eventually, someone hid a blinker and made it a puzzle cache. That has survived. And because it is a puzzle cache, it doesn't get as many visits, so the CO doesn't need to replace the tiny log as often.

 

Other than that, I'll echo what airsoft said. What kind of cache do you want to own and maintain for the long term? What kind of cache do you want to be known for among your local geocaching community?

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5 hours ago, adahen said:

not to make something what will get [...] constantly criticized [...] I thought about magnetic nano behind street sign for a start.

 

The nano cache behind the street sign would be a boring statistic point for most of the finders. Driving to ground zero, getting out of the car, finding the cache, logging it with problems as the nano cache is so dadgum small, having more problems getting the logbook back in and that's it. What do you expect this cache to be and would you think of this cache as "wow, that was a good hide"?

 

Perhaps you can't read it directly from the logs (as honest logs are rare) and they just say "quickly found it" but is that what you want for your first hide?

 

I understand your concerns but I am sure you can do something better: the cache in the park sounds nice and why not ask for permission?

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5 hours ago, adahen said:

Hi all, I know this has been on the forum for a bit. The ones I found are quite old, and was thinking that resurrecting the subject might bring some more light on it.

I have now 298 finds. Some great, some not so much. Enjoyed almost every single one. Recently we went to Geocoinfest 2019 in Manchester. With all the joy and raffle we got in a possession of various kinds of containers - from nano, bison tube to a flask size. I was thinking about hide for some time. I started the game 4 months ago and there a few caches around with lots of DNF and no response from CO for years now. I would like to do my first hide easy enough but, as my tendency to overthinking stuff, not to make something what will get muggled or constantly criticized, or worst, never attempted to find. I thought about magnetic nano behind street sign for a start. There is a very nice little park nearby would be nice for a camo bison on a tree but I think, I would need a permission here. Any advice from experienced fellows?

 

You'd need to ask permission for your nano too...

I took at look at your gallery and see you went to some noteworthy places.      :)   

 - So why would you want to place a nano on a street sign ?   Wouldn't you like others to go to nice places too ? 

I feel you bought containers, and now just looking for a place to hide them. 

We find a nice spot, then figure what container would best fit that area.

Every cache we've ever placed had permission for them.  Some took months to get permission.

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14 hours ago, adahen said:

Hi all, I know this has been on the forum for a bit. The ones I found are quite old, and was thinking that resurrecting the subject might bring some more light on it.

I have now 298 finds. Some great, some not so much. Enjoyed almost every single one. Recently we went to Geocoinfest 2019 in Manchester. With all the joy and raffle we got in a possession of various kinds of containers - from nano, bison tube to a flask size. I was thinking about hide for some time. I started the game 4 months ago and there a few caches around with lots of DNF and no response from CO for years now. I would like to do my first hide easy enough but, as my tendency to overthinking stuff, not to make something what will get muggled or constantly criticized, or worst, never attempted to find. I thought about magnetic nano behind street sign for a start. There is a very nice little park nearby would be nice for a camo bison on a tree but I think, I would need a permission here. Any advice from experienced fellows?

I was in Edinburgh last year and many of the caches I found there were nanos. Almost all had full or damaged logs but on the plus side they took me to many interesting places where anything larger would not have been practical. Edinburgh is very high muggle territory. Don't be afraid to hide nano (ignore the nano haters) but place it somewhere more interesting than a street sign.

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15 hours ago, adahen said:

Hi all, I know this has been on the forum for a bit. The ones I found are quite old, and was thinking that resurrecting the subject might bring some more light on it.

I have now 298 finds. Some great, some not so much. Enjoyed almost every single one. Recently we went to Geocoinfest 2019 in Manchester. With all the joy and raffle we got in a possession of various kinds of containers - from nano, bison tube to a flask size. I was thinking about hide for some time. I started the game 4 months ago and there a few caches around with lots of DNF and no response from CO for years now. I would like to do my first hide easy enough but, as my tendency to overthinking stuff, not to make something what will get muggled or constantly criticized, or worst, never attempted to find. I thought about magnetic nano behind street sign for a start. There is a very nice little park nearby would be nice for a camo bison on a tree but I think, I would need a permission here. Any advice from experienced fellows?

 

The smaller the container, the more work it can be to keep it viable.  I have two bison tube hides that are just about the diameter of a Nano blinkie, and the O-ring is gone every couple of finds.  For a Nano, the O-ring is what makes it easy to close and then open later, due to not being jammed shut.  And one drop of water is enough to soak the log sheet, so unless you check it a lot (unless you hide it where the drop of water doesn’t occur), it will always be found a mess.  Not everyone lets you know it’s “getting bad”, but everyone will post a special log once it’s ruined.

 

You’re lucky to have more than one!  Replacing Nanos when the cap or magnet is lost can become costly.  A couple of replacements, and it’s starting to add up to the cost of an Ammo box already!

 

Anyway, I hid Nanos and stuff, but now I try to go a little bigger unless absolutely necessary. A little lock-n-lock hidden in a fun way, camo or not, tends to be an enduring hide for me.

 

...but I have 200 Nano centrifuge vials, and if I get a cool idea, watch out! :)

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8 hours ago, colleda said:

(ignore the nano haters)

 

When I found my first nano cache I was astonished and thought it to be really cool - such a small container. Wow. Great! (By the way, that was my first cache ever found. ;-))

When I found my second nano it was okay.

Whenever I find a nano in a good place where you can't hide anything else or the size makes the cache hard to find (intended by the owner, high difficulty rating) it is okay.

 

But what is the sense of hiding a nano cache when you could hide bigger caches in the same area? The nano is not cheaper, the nano is not easier to take care as owner (as the logbook is full regularly) and sometimes you need a tool to get the logbook out of the cache - especially old and handicapped cachers will have problems. And as owner you don't get a nice logbook to keep in the end. :-(

 

So you can hide nano caches for several reasons - but just hiding them as you own them is not the best reason to do so. But I wouldn't go so far saying I hated them.

 

But of course the original poster may hide whatever he wants. And there are definitely worse containers than nano caches (sometimes I find used chewing gum boxes for example - nanos are much better).

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On ‎9‎/‎9‎/‎2019 at 8:44 AM, cerberus1 said:

We find a nice spot, then figure what container would best fit that area.

 

I like this. Rather than try to find a hiding spot for a specific container, look for the kind of spot you'd like to visit and then figure out what kind of container you could hide there.

 

However, there is something to be said for hiding a simple, unflashy cache as your first hide. That way, you can learn more about what cache ownership entails and what does or doesn't work, and then later start hiding "better" caches using the lessons learned.

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I read all your comments, thank you. I liked all kind of geocaches I've found - from nano to ammo box, from off-the-shelf to well crafted. Might be just because I'm new and so excited with this game... Decided to go with nano as we live in a small city and putting something bigger, I fear, will be muggled the same day. I'm planning something better for local park but this will have to involve talking to local authorities as I know, they look after this park very well and something suspicious hidden behind the tree won't survive long. You're right, I enjoy finding crafted hides and I hope I'll make one in near future too.

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1 hour ago, adahen said:

And I have first found B). Interesting, in less than 30 minutes after I received the email the cache is published, I received another email saying it's found! ^_^

 

Congratulations. :-)

 

I like the pictures in the listing but why are they so small? I think you can double their size without problems.

 

Have fun with the first hide. Let's hope the nano survives for some time. :-)

 

Jochen

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