Good Swaps vs Bad Swaps

[reasonjo]

I'm pretty new to caching (6 months) and I've been trying to figure out what constitutes 'good swaps'?

I went on a day of caching south of Darwin and of the 13 caches I found that day about 10 of them had a postcard from a local resort/hotel dropped in the cache as a swap. Now, I see this as a good example of a 'bad' swap and it really irritated me every time I opened the cache that the same postcard was in there again. It got me to thinking what is a good swap?

Most of the caches I've found have basically had toys, or stickers or pens and similar things in them. Some of the items are new and some of the items look like they've been dragged out of the kids toyboxes and used as geocaching swaps. I don't have kids or many knick knacks floating around, so once I'd figured that caching was something I was going to stick with I went and spent about $70 on stuff from Woollies and the $2 shops around town. I picked up things like giant fridge magnets, a skipping rope, bouncy balls, packs of miniature coloured pencils, plastic toys (dinosaurs & snakes), toy cars, pretty hair ties. None of it was paticularly expensive and the vast majority was aimed at giving geo-kids something to find and swap.

I've trawled these forums looking for a topic that would answer my question, but I can't find one. What I have found is lots of cachers who have been around for a while bemoaning the poor quality of swaps these days - and that new cachers see this new poorer quality of swaps and think that it's normal.

So.. what constitutes good swag?
(or.. if the question has been asked before and I just couldn't find it, a pointer in the right direction would be appreciated.)

Thanks,

Jo

[Cheesy pigs]

The basic rule of thumb is try to swap even or up, try to have decent swaps that you can leave in the cache. I tend to order lots of bulk deals on ebay, keyring torches, mini compasses that kind of thing.

[CraigRat]

Cack in the day a lot people use to have in their cache page 'Trade up, trade even or don't trade'

This saying seems to have vanished over recent years.

[Black Bunny]

I try to think about what I'd like to find in a cache - then I realise that those things would be waaaaay too expensive - no diamond rings, sadly!
I've found some really neat stuff in caches, so I make notes about what sort of thing that is, and keep an eye out for things like that.
I've found some great little marbles, a glass egg, a marble chess piece, carabiners.... the list is very long.

I have also been known to remove soggy paper, broken toys, etc., and replace with unbroken things.

As far as I can work out the cardinal rule is: If you take something, leave something equal or better.

The next rule is to never put food or food containers, or anything unsuitable for children (matches, knives, bangers and so on). It's common sense, really.

I keep a box, and put potential good stuff in it. Every now and then, I go through it, and cull the less brilliant ideas. Easy.

I also try not to add to our environmental problems by buying any cheap plastic rubbish.

Wendy

[Cheesy pigs]

The next rule is to never put food or food containers, or anything unsuitable for children (matches, knives, bangers and so on). It's common sense, really.Wendy

I have found a cache where the swap left by one finder was a cigarette!!! I was a bit surprised at that. It was an actual cacher too, not a muggle who stumbled on it.

[Yurt]

We found a cigarette lighter in one in the middle of prime dry bushland. We took it out in order to discourage any potential firebugs!
Swaps in some areas are quite good and completely awful in others. With kids we went through their stuff and put together a swag of never (or hardly) used toys and used them to swap for things they liked the look of. There can be quite good stuff in there, if it's higher value than normal you can be fairly sure someone got it as a promotional item so it didn't cost them anything. I'm okay with that - have picked up some nice little sponsored toolkits and even a good-looking watch.
Lately we haven't swapped much as our swag has been nearly empty. Kids won't part with any more of their useless junk and I haven't got around to buying stuff.
Some people seem to be fond of larger things which totally pack out some of the smaller caches. I try to swap with these items just to make space.
I'm far keener on swapping trackables but two out of three of the TBs and GCs listed as being in caches I've found in the past few months have been missing. When travelling I like to target caches with trackables and swap with those I've found locally. Seems I can't find any these days. I think they whole thing is dead, or nearly so, as I've said in the other thread.

[setsujoku]

Unfortunately we seem to have the issue here where the cache container just isn't big enough (or sometimes strong enough ) to hold any swaps.
Quite often recently we will arrive at a cache to find that it doesn't have a proper log book, let alone any swaps.

It would be good to see the 'Trade up, trade even or don't trade' return to cache pages and for swaps to be of a decent quality and quantity in caches.

Having said that we don't usually trade anything, but for people with kids it is part of the fun for them, and just going to another cache that only has broken pieces of plastic (meaning the swaps, not the container, that's another story all together), gets boring rather quickly.

When I started caching it was always interesting to see what was in the cache, and often there were some decent things in there, apart from the traditional macca's toy. That has really gone down hill.

In reality a good swap is something that others will like to swap for, and not just any bit of plastic pretending to be a toy that is bouncing around under the seat of your car.
Starting a new cache with a good range of swaps goes a long way to help keeping the cache stocked, as most people will recognise that you have put some effort into the cache and will try to swap something, and not just take things from it.

[Team Wibble]

The problem with this question is the same as "How long is a piece of string?"

What is considered a "good" swap to someone might not be to another. A huge range of people cache with differing tastes.

Lots of people dispair at finding old golfballs in caches, but had I found something like that as a kid it might have amused me for some time (okay... I was an odd kid, and loved collecting old golf balls). Another often dispaired swap is KFC towelettes. I actually don't mind finding these. After getting grubby hands poking about in dirt and bark it might be exactly what I'm looking for.

A toy from a happy meal might be exactly what a family with young kids might want to find in a cache, but might be of no interest to older cachers.

After more than five years of caching, we don't really swap much. We'll keep a lookout for pathtags or other signature items, and if we do see something we like we'll trade - usually useful things, a paper stand, book of post it notes, even a cute egg cup.

When placing caches we try and put some quality swaps in, that cover a range of tastes. A few small toys, stickers, mini torches, as well as some geocaching related goodies like badges, pins and lanyards, maybe some post it notes (still in a plastic wrapper of course), and promotional items we may have picked up such as stubbie holders, stress balls and coasters.

[calumphing_four]

The problem with this question is the same as "How long is a piece of string?"

What is considered a "good" swap to someone might not be to another. A huge range of people cache with differing tastes.

Ditto that. Generally the only swapping that occurs is when I'm caching with the kids. They'll see value in anything. Cal (4y.o) grabbed a shell (just a plain ol' shell easily found on suburban beaches) the other week from a cache and left a plastic dog in it's place. He was happy
Cheers

[tronador]

I don't tend to swap any more and I get tired of finding kiddie crap in the majority of caches. I will carry a very good quality adult swap to leave, if I ever come across a cache with more than discarded plastic junk. You also get to know which cachers put quality swaps into their caches but unfortunately as time goes by, the good stuff is replaced with kids junk.

[Richary]

Can't remember the last swap I did (apart from TBs, coins). Don't even bother carrying the caching backpack most times now. But it's full of crap kiddy toys anyway taken from other caches.

To me the swap is irrelevant, I want the find. On the other hand, what those of us without kids see as rubbish can be exciting to kids. I know when I was in a relationship in Adelaide and took the young boys caching, they loved being able to take some silly little McCrappy toy out of the cache - which meant I had to keep the toy car etc level up in the caching bag to replace what they took.

If there had been no swaps they would have been less interested. That's fine, different things appeal to different ages.

Yes I could carry a good swap. But the only point is if I find something worth swapping it for. And if I wanted that thing in the first place I would probably have bought it anyway. So is caching about the numbers (or the good find), or about being able to take something out of your backpack and replace it with something else? That sooner or later you will leave in another cache anyway?

[grahamf72]

When I'm caching by myself I don't do swaps. I get the satisfaction out of battling wits against the hider, so I get probably more satisfaction from a well hidden micro than I would from a tupperware container under an obvious pile of rocks. When I have the kids with me though they will always want to swap something, and they couldn't care if the thing they were taking was a half chewed pen lid (ok maybe not that extreme), but things like McToys, plastic animals, toy cars etc are great for them, and we'll leave a similar style toy in its place. They don't care that it has been in someone elses toybox for 20 years before they get it. Like a previous poster said, my kids have also been thrilled at just a shell or a piece of chalk, and have left little toys of theirs in its place. What we as adults see as junk, the kids seem to enjoy. I reckon if I came across a cache with more valuable swaps like jewellry, tools, etc, the kids would ignore it and want to take the pencil for the log.
At the same time though, I probably wouldn't recomend loading a 5/5 cache up with McToys because the kids aren't likely to get to that type of cache.

[RobWinmar]

When it's a small container so stuffed with crap that you can't close the lid in under 5 minutes, then every swap's a bad one, unless you're leaving something smaller. I don't tend to swap anything other than TBs. Don't really see the point to be honest.

[caughtatwork]

A good swap is anything I take or leave.
A bad swap is anything I don't take.

[flipper&co]

We don't swap any more either, but we will put in a path tag, and just sometimes we are rewarded with a path tag find in the wild. So we start our new caches with path tags and even top them up in a couple of spots, and one of our micro caches has a reward of a path tag if we are emailed the finders postal addy
cheers
Gayle & Mark