When picking up Geocoins and TBs from caches...

[Rabbitto]

To anyone new to the game, it is exciting to find a geocoin or a TB in a cache and you can't wait to log your find. However....

Sometimes in the excitment, you may have picked up the coin or TB before the person who placed it there has had a chance to log it into that cache. Please give them a chance to get home and log that item into that cache before you try and grab it. If you don't this, you will merely grab the item off the previous holder and this will cause 3 things to happen -

1. The item will never get to visit the cache from where you picked it up.

2. The previous holder will have the item disappear from their inventory meaning that they are wondering what happened to it.

3. Both the TB owner and the person who was holding the TB before you, will both be very sad. (and nobody wants to see a grown geocacher cry)

Don't forget too, that a geocacher may take a few days to get home to log their finds, especially if they are on a long trip so some patience may be needed. (Just hold onto the TB until you are able to log your pick up.)

If someone is taking a little longer than a few days, a polite email may assist.

If a couple of weeks go past with no reply, by all means grab that sucker of the previous holder so you can move it on.

[Big Matt and Shell]

Especially Events!!!! - Some of us travel far and wide to events and it can take us a few days to get home and do our logs...

Great post Rabbitto, this is something that has frustrated for a while.

[Yurt]

And don't keep the flipping things! They are not trade items!

Pity the relevant people don't look at the forums.

[Richary]

A case in point, I picked up one in Warrnambool recently. Now while I have the capability to be online while travelling a lot of people don't. I realised it had only recently been placed there but some other cachers who weren't local.

After a week and a half it hadn't been logged still, a quick email via the site indicated it was because they had forgotten which cache it was in, now they knew they could drop it. I then made the grab and dropped it in Sydney the following weekend. All nice and easy, and sorted with a couple of emails.

[EuDes]

The other thing I'm noticing more often recently are trackables that are physically in a cache but are not there electronically. Usually, they are still in someone's inventory even though they have been in the cache for quite a while or are in an entirely different cache.

Now, it might not be entirely kosher but I tend to note down the tracking numbers of travellers I 'meet' for discovery purposes. If I find that the physical and the electronic TB don't match location though, what I do is grab it from its electronic location and log it into its physical location with a "Write note" (or the 'Found' log if I notice it in time).

Some recent examples include:
androsens SwedenHawk Geocoin
Volcano Voyager
Plymplodders

This incorrect handling of TBs can cause problems and this one Beaver Adventure Guide is a example of just such a thing. It is definitely not in Christmas Crackers 2009 but by using a bit of detective work, it looks like it's up Falls Creek way.

Maybe the more experienced geocachers among us should start doing this electronic matching up of trackables with their physical locations, although I do appreciate Rabbito's point about the TB disappearing from the holder's inventory without their knowledge.

Any thoughts?

[Damo.]

I have a cache in the Sydney CBD which gets a LOT of finds and many many travel bugs and coins logged as being left there. Many of the trackables have come from overseas and I don't don't know if it is that they have been lost in transit and never actually put in the cache but I have to virtually clear the cache of trackables ever few months for the ones that never get logged out. I give them several weeks in case they were picked up by someone travelling, but after a couple of months I think it should have been logged.
It would be nice if people could take a bit more care and log all traveller movements promptly!

[EuDes]

I agree but I get the feeling that newer geocachers out there are not quite sure what to do with trackables. They might see them as normal swaps (hence they go missing, sometimes forever (benefit of the doubt being given here)) or they don't know that they have to take electronic possession of them as well as physical possession and then put them into the next cache they find. After that, they are no longer trackable until they are matched physically and electronically again.

One geocoin I found was placed in a cache, physically, by a newbie with the note in his Found log that there was a surprise for the next cache finder i.e. the geocoin!!

[MtnLioness]

Dad & I both found http://www.geocaching.com/track/details ... efcbac008b this coin some time ago, now, for the life of me I cannot find it as it says I have it and I cannot remember what has happened to it, I don't believe I actually have it so I don't know what to do about it, I WISH someone would grab it from me and fix this problem!!Lol

[Yurt]

One passed through my hands recently that had been lost when a cache was muggled. Someone found on the ground in the same area ages later and returned it to the system. Not long after I moved it another cacher said they found it on the ground near a cache! It may have a charmed life. Or not.

I brought back a couple from Canada and put them in a cache which I thought was pretty secure as it's hard to find. Cachers since have reported it missing but if you go through the logs one person said they picked up some GCs but didn't say which ones. From the logs they are the only ones it could have been (except if someone didn't log at all) I PMed them about it recently as I felt guilty about one of the GCs I'd brought back going astray. Of course this person has never replied and hasn't cached this year so it's a dead end.

[riblit]

Dad & I both found http://www.geocaching.com/track/details ... efcbac008b this coin some time ago, now, for the life of me I cannot find it as it says I have it and I cannot remember what has happened to it, I don't believe I actually have it so I don't know what to do about it, I WISH someone would grab it from me and fix this problem!!Lol

If you contact the owner and explain the situation the owner can mark it missing.

[theheadchef]

I have encountered a few caches lately empty of TB's and coins and it is most annoying when you went there for them.

Two little things I think could help a lot, and if the 'elite' agree it could be added to everything written on geocaching to educate people in future.

Firstly, the most obvious is, if someone goes to a cache and takes a TB or Coin, WRITE IT ON THE LOG....that way it doesn't matter that it might take someone a couple of days to get back online to log their find, at least the next lot of finders at least know whose hands it is in.

Secondly, to counteract the plot of leaving a bug and it getting picked up prior to being logged, can I suggest a simple DOT sticker on the TB or Coin with the DATE on it. That way if I leave a TB in Jesus' Crack on the 25th, I put a dot sticker on it with 25/3/10 or something thereabouts. So that if Peter goes into Jesus' Crack and finds a TB there on the 25th or even the 26th, when they get home and go to log their find, they can check first to see if it has been logged, and if it hasn't, they know to wait a day or so, or as someone said, send a gentle poke to the person.

Just a simple concept, but if I can teach apprentices to do it on food, I think we should be able to teach adults to do it on TB's.

Mind you none of this means jack crap if people are just out to steal them.

[blossom*]

I like the sticky dot idea, theheadchef. I actually did this when I went on a Tassie holiday. I made up a little note to go with all the TBs to say "I can't log this until xxx date, please wait until then to pick it up". I don't know how many people read my notes but all TBs were still marked as in my possession the day I got home so I was able to log them all correctly. Worked really well

[EuDes]

Another option could be that if you pick up a TB that hasn't been logged into that cache yet:

• 'grab' it from the 'current' holder so that it is now in your inventory
• place it electronically into the cache that you picked it up from using either your find log or a 'Write note' log if you've already logged the find
• retrieve it again from that cache.

If you feel like you've been impolite to the previous holder, just drop them a quick line telling them that you've done exactly that although many cachers won't even notice, or care, that you will have done it anyway.

[caughtatwork]

method de rigueur