Equal value? (or at least close)

[Guest Dwarf]

If I went to the trouble of placing a cache with REALLY good stuff in it, could I be assured of those items being replaced with equally cool items...no. of course not. But I'd like to push for such an ideal. BUT WAIT! only in the wideset of ranges. I don't mind one bit having a nice pair of shades replaced with a plastic happy-meal toy. I'm just talking about really good thing for really good thing. I know that value isn't the point at all, but come on. I know I'm not the first one to think of this (especially after someone takes an 1847 silver dollar and replaces it with a mustard packet.) Have some respect. Also I think Difficulty ratings should at least be relavent to items found. If you trek through the wilderness for 6 hours you should find a decent cache. I'm not saying leave a cell phone or a gold brick or anything, just a reasonable item compared to the difficulty of reaching it.

I guess what I'm saying is: If you felt shorted, then leave something better, not cheaper. I can imagine all of the negative responses I will get for this post, like "that's not the point" and such, but come on. everyone doing this knows that they have cringed reading an entry that said something like "I took the roll of film, the whoopie cusion, the kazoo (for my nephew), and the make-up case (for my wife), and left a coupon for 50 cents off on dog food"

Please don't be to harsh on me, I'm just opening the topic for discussion. thoughts?

[Guest Markwell]

You are not alone in your thoughts. Take a gander at the two forums here and here.

[Guest adventuretom]

As I said before, if you are just in it for the hunt then find the cache, sign the log and move on. Don't take anything and don't leave junk. I enjoy creating nice caches, but what's the point if the first handful of people take everything and leave old worn out golf balls? This hobby really needs to lose the "junk drawer philosophy". Hunt, have fun, but stop leaving junk! If you find a great cache with nice stuff in it and you have nothing good to trade, don't take anything. If you want to swap with some of the nicer caches go to your local Target or Walmart and scan around for some cool inexpensive things to trade. The discount endcaps at Target have tons of stuff . You can even find inexpensive trinkets at your local Outdoor store. Then next time you find a nice cache you will be prepared. Consider those coming after you. What are they going to find? What if they made a trip out of their way just to visit a themed cache and you disrupted the theme by leaving a bunch of bald tennis balls? If you don't want to trade fair, don't trade, just sign the log. It's that simple.

[Guest Campeon1981]

You know whats crazy? I get the feeling that those who do that (put in crap for something really nice) are oblivious to what they're doing. It's like they dont seem to get it through their skull that some cartoon stickers or *******' fortune cookie paper isn't exactly what we'd like to come across, regardless whether we're in it for the hunt or the treasure. The ones who take the time to make nice caches and hide them are gonna stop making them if you deadbeats dont get the point and straighten your act. Those of you know who you are. (insert expletive here)

 

Those who share my feelings, sorry, but I had to vent. These nimwits are gonna ruin it for all of us.

[Guest botrytisfree]

Actually, we have come to accept that a lot of people do not make "even" trades. Oh, well. For us, finding the treasure in the box isn't as important as finding the box. We do realize, however, that for many people (especially those with kids), the treasure is an important aspect of the game. So, we always try to make it a point to leave something better than what we took. If there is nothing we want in the cache, we will still leave whatever we brought with us. We consider it a "donation" to the game. We try to occasionally re- stock our caches, so that new participants might find something to get them excited about the game. While many of the items we leave have little monetary value, we have left some pretty interesting things. I think it is unrealistic to expect everyone to "leave something better than they take." So some of us have to pick up the slack. Doesn't bother us at all. I just hope we have made some cachers feel like they have found a real treasure. As a final note, remember, "One man's trash is another man's treasure, and one man's treasure is another man's trash!"

Botrytisfree and Erwinia

[Guest Ttepee]

er things here. I was proud of his assessment.

 

So equity is really in the eye of the beholder. For me it's more important that what I've hidden bring a smile on someone's face....most especially on my son's face as we find the adventure to bring people on.. I am not wealthy by a long shot.. but I've wasted my money on much less meaningful then this. My son and his friends that we bring on these hunts have also come to abide by this... many times they take nothing.. or something very trivial..and leave something much better...to say... WE'VE BEEN HERE!

[Guest Captain Kidd]

I agree with making a fair trade when you find a cache. I try to leave something nice at eace cache I visit. I make 14K gold filled wire pendants and I started to leave them as one of my regular trades,I also try to leave a peice of fools gold as a added item. I leave this because kids like the fools gold and you dont see it very much here in the Midwest. I hope that these are ok in your opinion.

[Guest adventuretom]

Well, after a trip to the big Target clearance sale last night, I will probably repair a couple of my caches this weekend and I'll also make a point to put some cool stuff in those I find this weekend also. It took a couple days but I think I'll get over being annoyed now and go back to having fun.

[Guest Dwarf]

Hey Captain Kidd! I would love to find a chunk of fool's gold! I'm proud to say that I was a boy-scout and got my geology badge in record time! In fact, I was quite disappointed to learn that there was a geode in the first cache I found, but I missed it by one find. I'm a rock-hound through and through.

[Guest spiny norman]

Hey Dwarf, My wife was a geology major in college who likes to leave mineral specemins in caches. As luck would have it, we will be in the Ozarks in a couple of weeks. (Not sure of how far north we will get.) I will see if we can come up with something extra special to hide for you. look for postings by Spiny Norman, Rockhound or The Play-Doh Kid.

[Guest leskowitz]

This fair trade issue is the reason why I hide more than find them. I am not disappointed when I find crap searching for hours for it. So I don't go.

 

I am making an effort to put more good stuff in my caches so and notify folks of it in the description. So far it's working, I recently went by my old cache site and there was actually some good stuff in there. Not everyone is total slackers. Sooner or later people those you rob the best stuff and replace it with crap will feel guilty and stock nice stuff. I can shame them later when they sign the book.

 

I also clean out the crap out of my caches, take something for myself and place some new loot in the stash.

 

Another, idea I have to reduce the trash is with my collectable cache site. Hopefully people will get the hint.