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Items Found In A Cache


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Granted, it's the journey that most appeals to me when caching, but I'm constantly amazed at the range of items I've found in caches. Some people place imaginative and quality items, while other place . . . well, trash. So, I'd be interested to compare notes on everyone’s best and worst items they've found in a cache. Here are mine:

 

Best: Original Han Solo action figure with accessories.

 

Worst: A used disposable razor, with facial debris caked between the blades (yuck).

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:ph34r: Funny you should ask!

 

One man's trash is another (wo)man's treasure.

 

On one of the caches that we found recently - We found the container & I proceeded to open it while my daughter got preoccupied with a squirrel that was barking at us.

When I opened the container, one of the items in the cache was a rock.

I thought "Good grief! Who'd put a rock in here." Then started signing the log.

My daughter finally looked at the cache items and goes "Cool!! A Rock!"

 

Oh well!! :lol::unsure::wacko:

 

D-man :blink:

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In the very same cache, I found:

 

1) a stinky used McDonalds burger wrapper, wrapped around the top half of a broken Flick (from Bug's Life) McToy.

 

2) a package of handmade stationery with beautifully done artwork and calligraphy - watercolor paintings of flowers and such.

 

Threw away the one, didn't take the other.

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In one local cache I found a dried-out cigarette that some well-meaning fool had left, no doubt figuring that someone would need it after hiking a whole quarter-mile up the trail. I try to remember that with very few exceptions, the items left in a cache had some value to the one dropping them off; that mctoy that seems to just be taking up space may have been a great sacrifice for the four-year-old learning that he has to give up something if he wants to have the pretty cardinal feather that caught his eye. On the other hand, I recently grabbed an unlabeled CD in a baggie that I fully expected to have Yannie or some such nonsense on it, and when I got back to the car and plugged it in found an excellent handmade collection of Dave Mattews, Blues Traveller, Tom Petty and more that has become one of my favorites!

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Best: 3 things come to mind...Hockey Bobblehead, book on Toronto Maple Leafs/Montreal Canadians, Lottery ticket that won $10.

 

Worst: A Spider (big ugly one that was alive), smelly moldy water...ok so people didn't leave those. Pee (someone definately left that...glad it wasn't me who opened the container), a tampon (unused), 2 small fire crackers (unused...I removed them), lonely cigarette, beer bottle cap. I am sur ethere are a lot more.

 

I have nothing against Rocks or McD toys...my son likes the rocks and has a good collection.

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In one local cache I found a dried-out cigarette that some well-meaning fool had left, no doubt figuring that someone would need it after hiking a whole quarter-mile up the trail.

Only a quarter mile? I'll bet it wasn't a CAMEL.

On the other hand, I recently grabbed an unlabeled CD in a baggie that I fully expected to have Yannie or some such nonsense on it, and when I got back to the car and plugged it in found an excellent handmade collection of Dave Mattews, Blues Traveller, Tom Petty and more that has become one of my favorites!

Illegal material. Nice. Still better than the ciggy butt though :lol:

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Best: 50 ml volumetric flask. Very cool piece of labware. (The only piece of swag I ever took.)

 

Heh- I bet that was left by the illustrious Cyber Chemist! I have been wanting one of those, but never get to one before it is traded for.

 

Best: Well, I have found lots of cool signature items, my favorites being the SquareD22 Geo Quahog coin and MidWay Cafe hat pins.

 

Worst: All manner of trash, sticks, broken toys, torn paper, etc. I almost always trash out obvious junk.

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People seem to be really bothered by the tampon thing  :lol:

Recognize this?

 

bookmark.jpg

 

Yesssss...it's a lovely Cool Librarian bookmark after a year in the wild, under an aesthetically pleasing but unhygienic fur of cache-mold.

 

Now think about tampons.

 

 

(p.s. I realized after I got it home that it wasn't a CL bookmark at all, but a CL tag...possibly signifying your FTF. Um, beg pardon. I use it daily as a bookmark. Honest).

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Yesssss...it's a lovely Cool Librarian bookmark after a year in the wild, under an aesthetically pleasing but unhygienic fur of cache-mold.

 

Now think about tampons.

 

:lol: HAHAHAHA! :unsure: I guess because most of my sea-side home is covered in a fur of unhygienic mold, I didn't even think of that!

 

AW-

My CL tags, or "mini-marks," are certainly meant to be used as bookmarks!! I started making tags as well as full-sized bookmarks when I started finding smaller caches around the area. I have also passed them out to muggles I have encountered on the trail - most often when they have asked just what, exactly, I am doing holding my "cell phone" out in fromt of me, walking in circles, muttering to myself.... I am SO GLAD to hear that you are using it daily!

Edited by Cool Librarian
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I have a psychological problem involving bookmarks. I cannot possibly settle down to read unless I have one tucked in the back of the book. Then I have to check it every once in a while to make sure it's still there, which it often isn't on account of bookmarks do that. And I have multiple books going at once, so the acquisition and maintenance of bookmarks is a serious occupation. I'm always grateful for a new one.

 

But back to the topic! Worst thing I ever found: one rather ratty and disconsolate cigarette, with the note "this is all we had to leave." I admit, I found that pretty funny.

 

Best thing? Hm. I haven't found anything really excellent. I've found things that appealed to me, but that doesn't speak to their worth.

 

Stupidest thing I ever left in a cache: my favorite pair of chopsticks. I was caching with Uncle Badger and he found something he really wanted in a cache (a simm card reader, I think. Say, that's something pretty good). We weren't carrying very good swag to leave in return, so I went through my regular bag and pulled out my favorite object...a really beautiful pair of rosewood, maple and ebony turned chopsticks. I figured that was about right.

 

When we got to the car, he said, "who's going to want to pick up something that's been in your mouth?" Which is quite right, of course, and I felt really stupid. One day, I'm going to go back and get them...

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Home made items are always cool, as are sig items.

 

The worst thing was the political ad that some stupid cacher had left in a cache.

(I wasn't even planning on voting for the person that the ad was flaming, but it still pissed me off.)

 

Other stuff doesn't really bother me. I just take the trash out and throw it away.

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Best thing besides sig items: a geocoin, and a silver ring with a chunk of turquoise in it from the 60s, one of those you found in cheesy Indian shops. Worst thing, a used condom near a cache and a bullet from maintenance of one of our caches.

 

Best thing we left: sig items, cash, and old foreign coins (over 100 yrs old). Um, if there were other things, I forgot what they were.

 

Anyone want a sig item idea? We had one for bookmarks that were pressed wildflowers on parchment paper, laminated. Easy enough to do. Pressing wildflowers is easy too. Make Auntie Weasel happy with bookmarks.

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I guess it all depends on what you like.

One of my favorite things in a cache was a collectable Tootsie-roll key chain that looks like Mr. Tootsie-roll and has a candy inside. It is on our memory shelf.

The worst? We once found a cache that was obviously put out as a prank. It contained a small notebook, torn in half, and a large crayon for the logbook, an old bent fork, some birth control literature and some other junk. Well, it still counted as a find!

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The two best things I've found in caches are 2 live bullets in the middle of nowhere in a PA game lands (after a little work they made good keychains) and a Case XX folding knife that a turkey hunter who stumbled upon a cache left. Yes, I realize both of those are "no nos".

 

The worst is religious pamphlets, closely followed by a ketchup packet and a Wendy's spork.

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Best: A mini RC car (FTF prize), a California 1/2 token worth about $5, and a pocketknife (illegal, but my son has used it for scouting).

 

Worst: A Wal-Mart receipt, rusty stuff, a fir cone (in the middle of a woods) and a mouse nest.

 

My son likes the rocks too. But he'll tell you that the best thing he ever got out of a cache is a whoopee cushion.

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Some of the better things I've found include a Geonap Geocoin, a $5 bill for completing a difficult multi, a knife and a nice well made compass

 

Worse... old cigs, bread, AOL virus disk. and more items covered in mold and mildew then I can remember.

 

Most unusual, 10 .45 Cal bullets

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One of the coolest things we've found is a miniture china tea set. It was in one of the caches we did on our first day of caching, and we still have it. My wife really likes it.

 

One of the worst trades I've seen was "Took Hacksaw, Left cool envelope." It was just a plain old envelope with a sunset picture drawn on it. Plus, it was all crumpled up from being shoved in the cache.

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Best: 50 ml volumetric flask. Very cool piece of labware. (The only piece of swag I ever took.)

 

Heh- I bet that was left by the illustrious Cyber Chemist! I have been wanting one of those, but never get to one before it is traded for.

A CyberChemist volumetric flask was the very first cache item I ever picked up. At the time, I didn't know they were coveted.

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I have to second the religious pamphlets as being on the "worst" list. They're not as bad as the broken crack pipe we found, but they piss off my husband (a recovering Christian) to no end. There's nothing like getting to the end of a nice, long hike, and finding prosletyzing, lemme tell ya.

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Best was probably an item listed as a "child's fanny pack" in the the log, but it fits a (small) adult -- I use it as a camera bag. It's the most comfortable fanny pack I've ever had -- just the right size, including a teeny zipper pocket that's just the size of 2 AA batteries:

camerabag2ey.jpg

 

Also really nice are bookmarks: the one on the left was handmade by anniebananie; the one in the middle was handmade by Pipanella (not found in a cache -- that was a sig-item trade); the one on the right isn't handmade; we just found it in a cache:

bookmarks1up.jpg

I use them all the time. Up until about 2 minutes ago, all three were in books that I'm in various stages of reading. (Now I've lost my places in all of them...)

 

We also like any trade item that we can turn into a travel bug, such as these four:

Hot Tomato

Best of Friends

The Key to Success

Geodude

 

Worst thing was a loose, sharp razor blade (the kind in an Xacto-knife or box-cutter). It was in a cache full of mostly little-kid toys; it was stuck to the back of a small fridge magnet. I'm assuming (hoping) that it was done accidentally, rather than maliciously, as someone just swept the contents of their kitchen junk drawer into a swag bag:

723f92fb-24ba-4052-a445-b3018922689e.jpg

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The best: A rugged keychain thingy that I have used for my work badge for the last two and a half years.

 

The worst: I don't try to complain about that crappy junk we find, I am after the logbook.

 

If I find something of interest, I always trade good.

 

Very rarely do I find anything that catches my interest, but that's OK. I like the hide and seek the most.

 

Thanks

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Has anyone considered CITO for the cache itself. If there is trash in the cache, add it to your haul back to the car.

 

Just be considerate of the people (kiddies) who love McDonalds Happy Meal items and use your otherwise best judgement.

 

Just a thought.

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