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Found Unrecorded Cashe


nobiss

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I was out for a walk yesterday and happened to find a geocache that is not recorded in the area I found it and the logbook hadn't been signed in 15 years! I'm thinking it must have been moved from somewhere else and therefore nobody has hunted for it in its current location? I'm not sure what is proper etiquette, should I just leave it in its current location even though it's rather swampy and not listed on the geocache app?

Edited by nobiss
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11 minutes ago, nobiss said:

I was out for a walk yesterday and happened to find a geocache that is not recorded in the area I found it and the logbook hadn't been signed in 15 years! I'm thinking it must have been moved from somewhere else and therefore nobody has hunted for it in its current location? I'm not sure what is proper etiquette, should I just leave it in its current location even though it's rather swampy and not listed on the geocache app?

 

There are several reasons a Geocache may not appear in an App.  With more information, I (or somebody) may figure out which one it is.  In some cases, you'd then be able to be able to log it online.

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If there are no signatures in the past 15 years it is highly likely that the cache was archived.

 

If there were more recent signatures, but the cache wasn't showing up on the App you were using, then a common explanation is that you found the end stage of a multicache, mystery cache, letterbox hybrid cache or Wherigo cache.  Their final locations aren't shown, for obvious reasons.

 

Out of curiosity, could you provide the location where you found this cache?  (State/Region, City/Town, name of park or trail or street intersection, coordinates if you have them)  I can look up archived caches in that area.

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24 minutes ago, kunarion said:

There are several reasons a Geocache may not appear in an App.  With more information, I (or somebody) may figure out which one it is.  In some cases, you'd then be able to be able to log it online.

Yep. When I've found caches accidentally, I've been able to use the usernames and dates on the log to figure out which cache it was. (Look up a username, look up the caches they found on that date, repeat until you know with certainty which cache it is.)

 

In one case, it had been archived after they owner thought it had been muggled. (It hadn't been muggled; it had only been "hidden better" by the last finder.)

 

In another case, it had been the final of a mystery/puzzle cache.

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1 hour ago, nobiss said:

I'm not sure what is proper etiquette, should I just leave it in its current location even though it's rather swampy and not listed on the geocache app?

 

Some people in the forums have said, never remove a geocache.

 

Personally, I think the responsible thing to do is remove the container, and if you happen to find the owner, then arrange to have the owner get the container from you. Since it's extremely unlikely that that particular container is still in play, or that the owner (if they are still active 15 years later -- statistically there's a small chance) will want that container, it will remain in the swamp as litter and won't be properly disposed of if you don't remove of it.  

Edited by L0ne.R
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2 hours ago, nobiss said:

I was out for a walk yesterday and happened to find a geocache that is not recorded in the area I found it and the logbook hadn't been signed in 15 years! I'm thinking it must have been moved from somewhere else and therefore nobody has hunted for it in its current location? I'm not sure what is proper etiquette, should I just leave it in its current location even though it's rather swampy and not listed on the geocache app?

It may be a geocache listed on a different site.

 

If you can post a list (or better, a photograph) of the log entries to show the caching names and dates , along with the approximate location where you found it, there are dozens of puzzle solving cachers on here in lockdown who have no outdoor caching possible at the moment, and would try to track it down . A description of the container and any cache note or other contents may yield useful clues too .

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Oh, and you are a basic member , and I see you've only found a few caches , so you may not know that this could easily be a premium cache , which you would not see on your app... or a puzzle which would not be shown where the final box is, but as a dummy location . Or a multi, or a Wherigo ... all of those are not where they actually show on the map.

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36 minutes ago, hal-an-tow said:

It may be a geocache listed on a different site.

 

Still no big deal. Even on other sites a cache owner is supposed to monitor and maintain their listing and container. And anyone who hides a container knows there's a (substantial) possibility that a cache will go missing eventually. We as owners either replace the container or we archive the cache. It's part of cache ownership. It's just a container.  It can be replaced.

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2 minutes ago, L0ne.R said:

Even on other sites a cache owner is supposed to monitor and maintain their listing and container. 

And anyone who hides a container knows there's a (substantial) possibility that a cache will go missing eventually. We as owners either replace the container or we archive the cache. It's part of cache ownership. 

 

Please explain.  Thanks.    :)   

Not knowing who's cache it is to begin with,  a finder wouldn't know which "other" site it's on,  much less what kind of cache type it might be there.

One even requires a sponsor to join,  so I don't understand where you're going with this, other than that "COs don't do maintenance" thing again...

An owner of that "other" cache would have no clue someone stumbled on it without logging there...

 

On this site, we still maintain the cache pages of archived hides  (all ours are picked up...),  and check on back-dated finds.

 

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4 hours ago, Keystone said:

If there are no signatures in the past 15 years it is highly likely that the cache was archived.

 

If there were more recent signatures, but the cache wasn't showing up on the App you were using, then a common explanation is that you found the end stage of a multicache, mystery cache, letterbox hybrid cache or Wherigo cache.  Their final locations aren't shown, for obvious reasons.

 

Out of curiosity, could you provide the location where you found this cache?  (State/Region, City/Town, name of park or trail or street intersection, coordinates if you have them)  I can look up archived caches in that area.

In St. Johns, MI, near our rails-to-trails path. I've found all of the other cashe's before and after this box, however, so I know that it is not currently posted. I wasn't geocaching at the time I discovered it, just happened to see an unnatural shape in the woods a little ways off the trail and decided to investigate. The ammo box is pretty rusty on the side it was laying, but the contents were in decent shape. The log book said, "Along the Bluewater Highway", which is referring to M-21, an east-west trunkline highway running from Grand Rapids to Flint, which includes St. Johns. I'm not super savvy with the app, but if there is a way to search for the owner I can go back and check for a name.

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3 minutes ago, Isonzo Karst said:

Try this one

https://coord.info/GCJ1BG

Along the Blue Water Highway - St. Johns RFD

An ammo can per gallery and the last find April 2005

 

If this is the cache you found,  you can log that find ;-)

I believe this is it!! Sorry for wasting everyone's time, I tried searching for it before posting in the forum but couldn't find anything about Bluewater Highway, so I appreciate you solving this mystery! It looks like it was originally posted in 2004 and last logged in 2005. The last comment was from August, 2005, and just says "gone". It appears as though it was archived in 2005. There is another comment that says it needs to be moved due to RR signs...this may have been around the time our city began the Rails-to-Trails project. I'll go back and see if it has an owner's name,  (didn't think of that the first time) and then maybe see if I can contact the owner to return it. I will log it too! This discovery got my kids and I excited to start geocaching again...we found 8 more today?

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11 minutes ago, nobiss said:

I believe this is it!! Sorry for wasting everyone's time, I tried searching for it before posting in the forum but couldn't find anything about Bluewater Highway, so I appreciate you solving this mystery! It looks like it was originally posted in 2004 and last logged in 2005. The last comment was from August, 2005, and just says "gone". It appears as though it was archived in 2005. There is another comment that says it needs to be moved due to RR signs...this may have been around the time our city began the Rails-to-Trails project. I'll go back and see if it has an owner's name,  (didn't think of that the first time) and then maybe see if I can contact the owner to return it. I will log it too! This discovery got my kids and I excited to start geocaching again...we found 8 more today?

 

Not a waste of time at all, it was an interesting mystery to solve.

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13 minutes ago, hal-an-tow said:

Owner's name is at the top of the listing,  this is them

they logged in earlier this month, so are still involved even tho' it's been a couple of years since they had their last find.

I imagine they will be interested to hear about their prodigal cache !

Thanks so much for the information! From here on out I'll spend some time getting better at this so I can figure these things out all by myself ?. Thank you, thank you!

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@nobiss

I would imagine that K9 Crew would have received an email due to your log, but just in case, why not drop them a direct email or message ( here https://www.geocaching.com/profile/?guid=74a6226c-c7c7-438b-aa70-ce6f324ee3bf ) to let them know that their cache is really still there.  It appears they thought that they had removed it back in '05, but evidently they did not, and the site later turned into a trail without any RR land rights issues.

 

 

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I have stumbled across a few caches, both from this site and those of another site, accidentally. I sign my find. Some have the name of the cache on them, so that makes it easy, but others don't, so I photograph the signatures and work out what cache it is , so I can log it. I did find it after all. Some have been of archived caches. I also sign and log them. If the CO didn't want their archived cache found and the log signed and then logged, they should have removed their litter. I have also found caches, which for whatever reason (too close to another, etc) have been placed and never published. Those unfortunately I can't log.

One cache I found because I was looking for a place to put a cache and thought that was a good place, but I found it already occupied. It was the last cache in a series that you could find after getting a clue from each of a number of previous caches. I wrote I had now found the last one and I must now go and find the earlier caches. Which I did.

Another I had started a several stage multi and was walking past a spot, looked at it and wondered about it, so checked. I needed to do no more of that multi, as the final was hidden there.

I found a cache out in the middle of a field. It had wandered about 200 metres from where it was meant to be.

There were others. I do check likely spots often as I walk past and sometimes it works out.

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