Crap! I found a geocoin…
Usually discovering a geocoin is a cause for celebration – and doing a little happy dance.
But in this case… I found the geocoin in my garage in a box of random things. See, I’m packing my house to move so I’ve been digging through my “just scoop the stuff into this box and I’ll deal with it later” boxes (yes boxes!) so I peeked inside and… TWO geocoins were winking up at me from inside.
Damn! I feel terrible – I have NO idea how long I’ve had them. AND I know somebody, somewhere is bummed ‘cause they’ve gone missing.
Normally my motto is that if I’m not going to move a geocoin along within a week, I DON’T take it! And I give that advice to friends and newbie cachers as well.
After all, there are lots of geocachers who only cache once a month or less. It’s better to “discover” the coin but not actually remove it from the cache if it’s going to hang out in your garage for a month.
Or months.
Or longer. (Gulp!)
I will, of course, be posting a note to these coin’s pages to let the owner know that they were safe – in my garage. And to profusely apologize for hijacking their geocoins. I’m NOT even sure if I ever posted that I HAD them!
(And I’ll say a little prayer to the geocaching gods that no other coins turn up in my possession during the course of packing!)
So now I’m in a quandary.
Do I find the most active cache in my area and drop them off right away?
OR
Do I wait until the end of May and TAKE them to Geowoodstock?
At this point, since I’ve had them for… well, I’m going with a timeframe closer to a year than a few weeks or months… what does 4 more weeks hurt? Plus, caches in this area used to be notorious for people stealing coins.
And now that I’ve been beating myself up as a coin thief since I found these poor forgotten relics of geocaching, I’m thinking I’m an accidental thief.
For certain, I’ll be notifying the owners that the coins are safe and will be moving again. But I’d like to tell them WHEN and WHERE!
What would YOU do?
Place the geocoins right away or wait for Geowoodstock in May? (And the very real possibility that another coin might show up in my possession?)
March 26, 2015 @ 4:35 pm
I’ve found misplaced tb’s in my possession too, I’ve logged a note on the tb page, then dropped them in a nearby cache that is as safe as can be. I’ve lost serveral tb’s never to know what happened, so I think that it’s nice to post so the owner knows. Good luck!
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March 28, 2015 @ 7:17 am
I’ve been on both sides of this spectrum … As matter of fact – my very 1st TB that I sent out May 2004 was all sorts of lost and founds – it just made it back home to me the other day
http://coord.info/TBGC0P
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March 28, 2015 @ 10:57 am
Contact the owners, and ask what they want you to do. Personally I would want them dropped nearby in an active cache. Have had too many disappear from large events never to be heard from again.
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March 29, 2015 @ 4:52 am
Why don’t you let the owner you are contacting decide? I just picked up a coin at an event and when I read the log the owner really wanted it back. They had lost it off their walking/pokey stick. It wasn’t meant to be in circulation. They were elated to hear from me. Funnier still they are only a few hours from here and we are hoping to get it back to them at an event in 2 weeks!!!
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