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Tracking Of "personal" Geocoins


BillP3rd

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I've looked at every thread in this section and I'm more-than-a-little surprised that this apparently hasn't come up. With various groups and individuals having their own geocoins made it seems to me that tracking is a problem. Currently I believe that only USA Geocoins and Moun10bike Geocoins can be tracked by Groundspeak.

 

Is it just me or...

 

- I assume that Groundspeak is a for-profit organization. They make money and all, right?

- I assume that virtually 100% of the required code is in place for tracking Groundspeak-assigned TB/Geocoin numbers.

- With the variety and interest in Geocoins, anyone who doesn't fall into the "USA Geocoin" or Moun10bike category is on their own if they want the coins tracked. (How are your web and database programming skills?)

- Design and production of a custom coin generally run into hundreds of dollars.

- If one is willing to go to the trouble and expense of producing a coin wouldn't they be willing to pay a (hopefully) nominal fee and conform to standards (assigned numbers/designators, etc.) if they could be tracked on geocaching.com?

- I WOULD. Pay that is. Revenue. For Goundspeak. To track my coins.

 

I'd love to do a coin and even have some designs in mind but frankly the tracking problem prevents me from doing it. I have the programming skills so it's not a technical issue. But without some sort of unified/centralized solution I feel like if I had 100 or 200 or 500 or whatever quantity made, they'd just go down a black hole when they went out. Ok. They're collector's items but I'd still enjoy knowing where they went and a unified solution (common interface on geocaching.com) might encourage people to log finds.

 

As it is:

 

I have a number of TBs which I intend to associtate with Washington State geocoins so thay can be tracked. Yuk. I hate that solution but it's the only one that get's them on geocaching.com (ok, Groundspeak.com).

 

Apologies if this has been previously discussed.

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- I assume that Groundspeak is a for-profit organization. They make money and all, right?

Yes

 

- I assume that virtually 100% of the required code is in place for tracking Groundspeak-assigned TB/Geocoin numbers.

Since they come up with the numbers it must be...

 

- With the variety and interest in Geocoins, anyone who doesn't fall into the "USA Geocoin" or Moun10bike category is on their own if they want the coins tracked. (How are your web and database programming skills?)

Yes, or at least till recently, i'll come back to that and give you the info

in programing skills are non-existant, but there are enough cachers who have the know how that are the several tracking sites, geo lutions, travertags, whatever they call the site the tracks the CA coins, etc etc.

 

- Design and production of a custom coin generally run into hundreds of dollars.

oh YEA!

 

- If one is willing to go to the trouble and expense of producing a coin wouldn't they be willing to pay a (hopefully) nominal fee and conform to standards (assigned numbers/designators, etc.) if they could be tracked on geocaching.com?

maybe. what do you call nominal? and what standards are there and how to they fit with my coin ideas?

 

- I WOULD. Pay that is. Revenue. For Goundspeak. To track my coins.

Off hand I recall it as being 1.50 for each coin, with a minimum of a few hundred. I don't know if they Groundspeak has to ok your design before production or not. ill find one of those threads....

 

" But without some sort of unified/centralized solution I feel like if I had 100 or 200 or 500 or whatever quantity made, they'd just go down a black hole when they went out. Ok. They're collector's items but I'd still enjoy knowing where they went and a unified solution (common interface on geocaching.com) might encourage people to log finds."

:D Having a tracking site (ANY) isn't going to change that.... some will still go out the door and never be heard from again. A few will be logged though :D .

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INFO:

In this thread Jeremy says "Not true. We're working with some orgs to allow trackable coins. However the coins will need to have alphanumeric tracking numbers which is unavailable from most coin manufacturers. They seem to only be able to do sequential numbers. If anyone knows of a coin maker that can provide this service, I'd love to hear about it. "

 

This thread was posted to the calagray area cachers seems to contain some specifics. I'll quote it for you

Just got an e-mail back from Bryan (the guy about the logo). It seems that the only way we're going to be able to use the Groundspeak logo is if the coins are trackable with Groundspeak. The cost to do this is $1.50 US/coin. There may also be an additional cost as far as minting goes (I've got an e-mail in to pressedmetal to see what they have to say. Comments? I think it would be REALLY good to have these tracked by Groundspeak what does everyone here think? How would this effect your orders?

 

I've included Bryan's e-mail below:

 

Hi Dale,

 

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. After review, here is what we

have come up with as the Groundspeak geocoin production and logo usage

policy going forward.

 

All logo usage for the geocaching.com logo must incorporate the

geocaching.com URL. This is solely for trademark protection purposes.

 

Due to the confusion generated by other trackable (not on geocaching.com)

coins that use our logo, we have decided that non-trackable coins may use

our logo (with permission of course) but coins that are solely trackable

elsewhere will not be permitteed to use the geocaching.com logo. As you may

know, we have a lot of trouble with geocachers trying to track their

non-trackable coins on our site. This results in some overworked customer

service personnel and unhappy geocachers.

 

As of today, we are commencing a program whereby organizations may purchase

geocoin tracking numbers for us which will allow their coin tracking to be

fully intergrated with the geocaching.com website.

 

Assuming you might be interested (perhaps?), here are details:

 

First, the tracking numbers to be printed on the coins will have to be

alphanumeric, rather than solely numeric. The purposes for this, going

forward, will be to avoid people being able to guess the numbers and falsely

logo coins/TBs.

 

The format can contain a prefix (like CA_________) and then be followed by a

random combination of 4 letters & numbers (we'll generate the numbers, you

specifiy the prefix if you'd like one). So, a typical coin number example

would be: CA62h8 or CA124j.

 

We can send these codes with corresponding activation codes in a txt file or

excel file, whichever works best for you.

 

If you wish to use the geocaching.com logo, you would have to include the

URL beneath the logo (like on the usageocoins) but you are not required to

use the logo if you so desire.

 

The only required text would be: "Trackable on geocaching.com"

 

Of course, we would have to approve the final design prior to production.

 

That being stated, the cost per tracking number would be US$1.50 and can be

paid via paypal or credit card. There will be a 250 number minimum purchase

required.

 

Please let me know if you are interested in proceeding and, certainly, if

you have any additional questions.

 

Happy Geocaching!

 

Sincerely,

 

Bryan

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Not only that, not even GC uses letter/number combinations.

The "infamous" YJTB's have that wonderful alpha-numeric coding scheme.

 

If interested there are coin companies like www.coinsandpins.com that will laser engrave on a little title block anything you could want ie. codes, personal names, dates etc..

 

Idaho Geocoins have custom engraved names and CO GeoCoins will have the engraved alpha-numeric codes from that company.

 

Yes price can be an issue but its up to indivduals or orgs to decide on that matter. Plus less coins means more collectable perceived value, so everybody wins! :D (Not really, but you can't please everybody all of the time though I don't intend to)

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Yes price can be an issue but its up to indivduals or orgs to decide on that matter. Plus less coins means more collectable perceived value, so everybody wins! :D (Not really, but you can't please everybody all of the time though I don't intend to)

At the same time, if you make them more desireable, then tracking them is mute. How many Moun10Bike or USAGeocoins have gone missing or YJTBs for that matter?

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When I got the GOWT coins made, KV Coins said they could put whatever I wanted on the coins, Alpha-numeric. If you look at our coins (If your lucky enough to have found one, they are WTN##). Sure they are sequential but I could have had any code put on them. When I asked GC.com, I was told we were not an "organized group". !!!. How 'organized' do you have to be? Anyway, wound up getting the tracking at www.travelertags.com for a MUCH, MUCH, MUCH better deal.

 

My thought is, you could have an enormous amount of revenue if you allowed the tracking (after approving the coin I would imagine) and dropping your fee per coin. It will not cost GC.com $750 to track 500 coins or to generate the numbers. All of this is already in place and the money, if needed for software, hardware, etc. would be there.

 

I say we have this thread include folks stating how many coins they would be willing to mint if GC.com would allow the tracking and drop the fee to say .50 or so per coin. GOWT will be minting a minimum of 500 coins per year-every year. I can honestly say I have not bought 500 travel bug tags from them. Do the math. That's already a minimum of $250 per year coming to you from West Tennessee.

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Okay, no company that I know of is capable of making coins with specific numbers on them. 

 

Not only that, not even GC uses letter/number combinations.

Any company that can engrave a coin can put any number on it you want including alphaneumeric.

 

The virtually everyone who bought Idaho coins had them engraved with their names. The process is different than stamping an incrementing number. It's also more expensive. You are looking at adding at least a buck to the coin, plus the buck fifty GC.com wants so Tracking is going to hit you for 2.50 before you even have a coin to track.

 

But it can be done.

 

Edit: Should of read further into the thread before answering.

Edited by Renegade Knight
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When I got the GOWT coins made, KV Coins said they could put whatever I wanted on the coins, Alpha-numeric. If you look at our coins (If your lucky enough to have found one, they are WTN##). Sure they are sequential but I could have had any code put on them. When I asked GC.com, I was told we were not an "organized group". !!!. How 'organized' do you have to be? Anyway, wound up getting the tracking at www.travelertags.com for a MUCH, MUCH, MUCH better deal.

 

Up till a couple months ago Groundspeak had been saying no to requests to get the coin tracked. If you asked before whatever date they changed their minds, they would have said no....

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At the same time, if you make them more desireable, then tracking them is mute.

 

Not mute to everybody, gives the experimenters a chance, that want something to work on, to develop solutions to overcome a perceived problem of collecting.

 

For an individual, tracking (and the whole TB sub-game) is a personal perception and how they react to and use it.

 

For a company the monetary contribution is definitely not mute and the hope is that it will help with web site expansion there by improving the over all user interface.

 

Personally have turned quite a few USA GeoCoins into travelers and they're still traveling. I can tell you, I pursue GC.com tracking with the idea of supporting the company, giving the individual access to the best tool available at this time, and to see if it can be done. But most importantly because I am enjoying the whole process and resulting sub-game within geocaching.

 

How the end user uses/reacts to the end product will still have to be up to that end user in the end.

 

It's not the end?... :ph34r:

Edited by MRCOGEO
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We, (Calgary Cachers) decided not to get the coins tracked for a number of reasons, first and formost among them was the cost, second was the lack of interest from most people.

I asked Bryan about the cost, and I think one thing they were worried about was the potential impact this might have on travel bug sales. I'm not sure how valid this is, but I can understand the concern.

As far as alpha-numeric numbering, I got the impression that there *might* be some flexibility there, but by then, the cost had pretty much killed it for us, so I didn't pursue it.

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