have you signed the same log twice?

[+captnemo]

There is a power trail not that far from my house that I have been doing in chunks over the years.   As it is a power trail it isn't that uncommon for finder teams to do 3Cache Monty to move containers down the trail.  This results in when I find a  cache for the first time to discover that the log already has my signature on the log from a different location. I go ahead and resign with a new date but it looks like I found the same cache a few months apart.

 

I'm not worried that my find will be challenged as the CO relies on finders to maintain the caches, but have you had the same thing happen?  

[+NanCycle]

My log on 2/21/16:

 

Imagine my surprise when I saw my sig on the log in this cache dated 1-19-14! All the caches I had found that day were from 5.7 to 8.2 miles from here, on a line from Power Trip TB Hotel to Cache a Day Apr 8. Makes me wonder how this container and log migrated from there to here. Thanks for hiding this cache.

[+niraD]

I've signed logs a second time when I returned to the same cache with others (and then I posted a Note online, not a second Find).

[+Viajero Perdido]

Oh yeah.  Sometimes COs move caches, but keep the original logbook.

 

Whoa - the time and space continuum is all shifted here. I remember this trail; it's where Mä, Tryo, and Shka hung out. Mä's still here, but she's different somehow. And this logbook - I signed this book in another time and another space. I read my old note, looked around, where am I?

It took the Skeeee of a red-tailed hawk to break the spell and reunite my mind with body. I put the wandering cache carefully back in its adopted home, and thought, maybe we'll meet again somewhere. Thanks.

[+cerberus1]

We've noticed our sig in a few logs, mostly new caches with a "recycled" log book.

 - Sometimes we even find the swag we left in that new cache too.

[+Max and 99]

2 hours ago, captnemo said:

There is a power trail not that far from my house that I have been doing in chunks over the years.   As it is a power trail it isn't that uncommon for finder teams to do 3Cache Monty to move containers down the trail.  This results in when I find a  cache for the first time to discover that the log already has my signature on the log from a different location. I go ahead and resign with a new date but it looks like I found the same cache a few months apart.

 

I'm not worried that my find will be challenged as the CO relies on finders to maintain the caches, but have you had the same thing happen?  

 

 

Great question!

Sometimes others have switched out my cache log because they did a nearby power trail and it was easier on them to just switch the log than take the time to remove the log, sign it, and return it.  A local went to sign the cache log and was very confused that her name was on the log since she has never been to that new cache before! Frustrating.

[+Harry Dolphin]

I did sign a moving cache twice.

[+J Grouchy]

I've revived archived caches and just re-used the existing log book...so it's possible/likely that some finders have signed the same log twice.

[+Corfman Clan]

Yes, yes I have. Most are from caches that were archived and then relisted from the Great Arizona State Land Trust Geocache Purge of 2014. Here's one from Twenty Fifth Surprise "Back Packer THE VIEW 2":

 

Though I messed up with the date, signed the second time on 1/11/19, not 1/11/18. The original listing: Twenty Fifth Surprise "The Back Packer Trail" VIEW

[+frostengel]

On 10/5/2019 at 7:24 PM, captnemo said:

As it is a power trail it isn't that uncommon for finder teams to do 3Cache Monty to move containers down the trail.

 

What the heck is "3Cache Monty"? I have never heard of it.

 

As I understand it there should be no problem of you signing the logbook of the cache you actually find. If others move the container or the logbook that is the problem. They shouldn't do it and I am really shocked that with power trails this seems to be not uncommen (quote) in your area!? I find this absolutely a no go and always hoped only some very few misguided "geocachers" (wouldn't want to call them real geocachers as with geocaching you hide everything as found - that is part of the game) would do so.

 

Jochen

[+niraD]

17 minutes ago, frostengel said:

What the heck is "3Cache Monty"?

The phrase "three cache monte" refers to the "shortcut" that is used on numbers trails, where found containers are replaced with a similar container with a pre-signed log, and then the original container is taken back to the vehicle. In the vehicle, a team member signs the log so that it can be used to replace some other container on the numbers trail, or on some other numbers trail.

 

The phrase derives from the con game called "three card monte" where the sucker is unable to figure out where the money card ends up. WIth the "three cache monte", no one is able to figure out where the original container or log ends up.

[+frostengel]

3 minutes ago, niraD said:

The phrase "three cache monte" refers to the "shortcut" that is used on numbers trails, where found containers are replaced with a similar container with a pre-signed log

 

Thank you niraD. I thought so from the context. I didn't think that this (bad) technique had a name....

 

3 minutes ago, niraD said:

The phrase derives from the con game called "three card monte" where the sucker is unable to figure out where the money card ends up. WIth the "three cache monte", no one is able to figure out where the original container or log ends up.

 

I see - that's a nice information (thumbs up for that). Thank you. :-)

 

Jochen

[+niraD]

FWIW, the earliest use of the phrase that I could find in the forums is here:

 

 

[+Goldenwattle]

" 3Cache Monty "

Never heard of this and never experienced it. Sounds very wrong.

[+hzoi]

The first time I became aware of it was with a desert power trail outside of Las Cruces, New Mexico.  I was training for the Bataan Memorial Death March just up the road at White Sands Missile Range, so I tried to get out to dirt roads in the middle of nothing to go hike long distances with a pack.  I figured, why not get some caches, too?

 

I didn't want to stop for caches too often, so I broke up a few power trails, finding every fourth cache on the way out and then every other cache on the way back.  That left me room to still find caches the next time I came out to train a week later.  Unfortunately, the week between my first and second visit to the series starting with this cache, some lazy cachers came along and played container swap.  So nearly all of the caches I found on the second visit already had my signature on them.  It took me a cache or two to relize what had happened - these were all caches hiding in sagebrush, not super distinctive, so I thought at first I was confusing caches I found with caches I hadn't yet.

 

So, thanks to some lazy bums, there are a bunch of cache logs in that series that I've never signed, even though I logged the cache online.  I guess if I really wanted to protect my claim, I should have signed again on the logs I'd already signed.  But I don't think the CO is going to audit me and delete my finds, especially three and a half years later.

Edited October 7, 2019 by hzoi

[+J Grouchy]

45 minutes ago, hzoi said:

But I don't think the CO is going to audit me and delete my finds, especially three and a half years later.

 

I get the sense that it would be unusual for PT owners to actually check signatures.  (That's my diplomatic way of saying I honestly don't think they care.)

[+hzoi]

23 minutes ago, J Grouchy said:

1 hour ago, hzoi said:

But I don't think the CO is going to audit me and delete my finds, especially three and a half years later.

 

I get the sense that it would be unusual for PT owners to actually check signatures.  (That's my diplomatic way of saying I honestly don't think they care.)

 

Yeah, I'm not sweating the audit.  It's not coming.

[+dprovan]

Once I found my name on a log where I wasn't expecting it. It turned out that the log bag had been mistaken for a TB bag and accidentally moved by someone that just thought they were doing a routine TB move from one cache, a cache I'd recently found, to a new cache just released. Once I figured everything out,the punch line is that it turned out that I was the one that put the TB in the log bag, so it was all my fault someone was fooled into moving it. Fortunately it was over a short period, so I went back and moved the log back to the original cache before anyone noticed it was missing.

[+colleda]

I recently had 2 FTFs on the same log.  The first find I noted in my log that it was dangerously closed to being washed away by high seas and the magnet was not strong enough to hold it to its very rusty pylon. The CO archived it (accidentally I think) then placed it in a guard rail about 100m away. It took a few days to grab it as an RV parked right alongside it. I opened the log sheet to sign and found my signature already on it. So I signed it again. A GR cache in a nice spot above a beautiful beach.

 

GC8DJ3G

GC8DWHK

 

Edited October 7, 2019 by colleda
typo

[+Goldenwattle]

19 minutes ago, colleda said:

I opened the log sheet to sign and found my signature already on it.

I don't understand why the CO didn't remove the used pages. If I reuse a log, I do. Anyway, you didn't mark it, but the FTF is yours.

[+kunarion]

2 hours ago, Goldenwattle said:

I don't understand why the CO didn't remove the used pages. If I reuse a log, I do. Anyway, you didn't mark it, but the FTF is yours.

 

On my caches, I often get an "FTF" signature inside the hard cover of the log book, then a page or two of signatures on the actual paper leaves.  Then if I archive it, I have a marked-up inside cover (plus pages to try to cut out) in an otherwise blank book.  I kind of expected the cache to endure, so it's a nice themed log book, cache name and all.  And *sigh*, a marked-up inside cover.  It's extra work to recycle one of those.  I may or may not just drop it into my new cache with no modifications.  Don't tempt me.

 

But, yeah, it would surprise the FTF to see a bunch of signatures already.  Plus his own previous "FTF" inside the cover.

 

Edited October 8, 2019 by kunarion

[+Goldenwattle]

57 minutes ago, kunarion said:

a marked-up inside cover

If I were reusing the log book, I would white-out any previous logs on the hard cover, or just paste paper over them.

[+barefootjeff]

3 hours ago, Goldenwattle said:

I don't understand why the CO didn't remove the used pages. If I reuse a log, I do. Anyway, you didn't mark it, but the FTF is yours.

 

I once got FTF on a cache that had part of a shopping list in the front of the logbook. I expect someone in the CO's household was probably wondering why they had no rice or tea.

 

[+colleda]

3 hours ago, Goldenwattle said:

I don't understand why the CO didn't remove the used pages. If I reuse a log, I do. Anyway, you didn't mark it, but the FTF is yours.

Didn't bother me. There were no other finders after my first FTF, it now has 2 FTFs in a row. The log now has a little history.

[+niraD]

1 hour ago, Goldenwattle said:

If I were reusing the log book, I would white-out any previous logs on the hard cover, or just paste paper over them.

When I've hidden caches that had log books, I've put a cache note on the cover of the book. The actual logs started on the pages.

[+SwineFlew]

Doesnt really matter... GS wont allow you to double log any caches anymore.

[+kunarion]

On ‎10‎/‎5‎/‎2019 at 3:24 PM, niraD said:

I've signed logs a second time when I returned to the same cache with others (and then I posted a Note online, not a second Find).

 

I do that when I'm dropping a TB, or sometimes when just placing Swag.  The signature may be exactly the same as a "Find".  That is, the current date and my cachername, although it's mainly to write what items I placed.  It is kind of like a Find anyway, and sometimes it's a challenge to find it again.  The online log of course now only allows one "Found It", so I might log a Note online, if I post any log.  I hope it doesn't bother anyone if I sign the paper log again (especially if it's a recycled log with an old signature, in which case the current date is different).  It wouldn't bother me for my caches.  I was there again.  If it's a safe cache for TBs, I'll return again.

 

The trickier thing for me is finding recycled ammo boxes that have other GC codes and cache names than the cache that they now are.  Especially when there are things written in sharpie on the lid, like clues to a bonus cache, when the obsolete clues didn't get removed.  I adopted a cache like that, and haven't removed the old cache identifier.  It just seems like part of the history of that old cache, and if it hadn't been adopted to me, it would still have that same stuff on it.  So good luck with that cache.

 

 

Edited October 8, 2019 by kunarion

[+kunarion]

21 minutes ago, SwineFlew said:

Doesnt really matter... GS wont allow you to double log any caches anymore.

 

It probably doesn't matter.  If the signatures are all on one log sheet, and if (due to three card monty or whatever) the cache you previously Found remains blank, then it could matter, because you didn't sign that log sheet.  It's blank.  Fortunately, it's also likely that such a cache is a free-for-all community maintained thing where nobody checks signatures.

[+captnemo]

On 10/7/2019 at 1:50 AM, niraD said:

The phrase "three cache monte" refers to the "shortcut" that is used on numbers trails, where found containers are replaced with a similar container with a pre-signed log, and then the original container is taken back to the vehicle. In the vehicle, a team member signs the log so that it can be used to replace some other container on the numbers trail, or on some other numbers trail.

 

The phrase derives from the con game called "three card monte" where the sucker is unable to figure out where the money card ends up. WIth the "three cache monte", no one is able to figure out where the original container or log ends up.

First there is no way I approve of "three cache Monte" but on this 800+ cache power trail it is common.  First time I found a cache with my signature already in it I was wondering if I had already found that one, so I backed up and checked the find where the cache came from and my signature was also there so now I just sign all logs on the day I find them and don't worry.  I was just wondering if anyone else had had this happen, which  they have.

 

I am now going to mortify how I find these, I have about 550 to go,  by skipping  some and finding them latter, thanks for the idea Hozi.  

[+hzoi]

On 10/9/2019 at 1:37 AM, captnemo said:

I am now going to mortify how I find these, I have about 550 to go,  by skipping  some and finding them latter, thanks for the idea Hozi.  

 

Yeah, I've made a habit of doing it this way when I can - if it's just one trail of caches, I'll pick a parking spot, then walk out and back, getting odd #'s on the way out and evens on the way back.  I find that getting caches every 528'/161m  miles or so on the way out makes for an uneventful slog back to the car.  Also, having 0.2 miles/0.3 km to walk in between caches gives me a little more time to log the last find on the phone before I have to switch over to finding the next one.

 

Only once did I drive a power trail, I believe it was eight years ago this weekend, so I could get numbers up to log #4000 in Japan.  I got a couple hundred finds that week.  I found it dull and repetitive. 

 

These days, if a power trail also happens to be in a decent area for a walk, I'll chip away at it, 10 or 20 caches at a time.  That's how I managed to get most of the caches on the Virginia Capitol Trail, a bike path between Jamestown and Richmond with many, many hides (example).  I must have walked over 80 miles on that bike path, one bit at a time, alone with my thoughts and a GPSr.  Nearly always a morning or afternoon well spent, and a great way to clear the head.