Economic Of Cache Contents

[daw3rd]

I am new to geocaching and have found about 10 so far - all with my kids and their friends (ages 8-11). While there is no doubt that much of the enjoyment of caching is in the hunt, there is also surely some excitement in the prospect of finding something cool. If not, then I think caching could be enhanced if there was that prospect. However, the (greedy) economics of geocachine results in people taking the better items from the cache and leaving the lesser items. Over time this results in all the worst stuff being left in the caches. So, I'm wondering if the brighter collective mind out there can come up with a solution to this. Ultimately, we need to somehow incent people to leave good items and take the lesser items. Perhaps someway of maintaining stats around this could help. Any ideas?

[+Kit Fox]

I have 44 caches that are small to large, that contain trade items. I have found no effective way to reduce the "consumption" of trade items, except two. By making a cache a tough puzzle cache, or a very remote cache, it reduces the amount of visitors, thereby reducing the number of traders. It has been my personal experience that cachers who go to the extra effort to find these caches, almost always trade up, or trade fairly.

[+briansnat]

There is no real solution other than owner maintenance, but how many owners can afford to restock their caches every few weeks.

 

I think we just have to face the fact of life that caches eventually fill with garbage and move on.

Edited January 10, 2006 by briansnat

[+Isonzo Karst]

Yep, what others have said. The more remote a cache, the better the contents over time. It only takes one family with multiple kids to turn a nice cache into junk. And that's with everybody trading "even" - typically item for item, but rarely value for value. Folks who stay in the game over time rarely trade at all; a coterie of likeminded folks rather disinterested in the trade aspects. And often they are the major placers of caches.

Personally, I wouldn't touch a trading stat with a ten foot pole.

[+The Leprechauns]

I stock my regular caches with nice items to start off with, including an FTF prize like a gift card, unactivated geocoin, etc. After that, what happens to them, happens. When I make maintenance visits, I will clean out trash, broken stuff, illegal items, etc. But I will put dollar store trinkets back in, to the extent that I restock a sparse cache at all.

 

If I wanted to run a dollar store, I would do so in a commercial district for profit, rather than doing it for free out of 20 ammo boxes and tupperware containers.

 

Eventually most geocachers get past the expectation of trading for good stuff at every cache, and focus on the thrill of the hunt. Trading then becomes something that happens when the mood or the proper item strikes. This is true even for my 11 year old daughter, and it was true when she was 9 also.

[+wvcoalcat]

I personally don't do much trading any more but I do carry some stuff that I'll stock up a kid friendly cache occasionally.

 

No matter where the cache is it will most likely get "traded down". I just made a trip to one of my semi-remote caches to retrieve a stranded travel bug and while going through the logs saw that someone had traded out the pencils for the log and the sharpener.

[Hugh Jazz]

Google this phrase: "Tragedy of the Commons." It's not a new problem.

[Hogosha]

Even brand new, I could see this being a problem, and I have not taken anything in trade yet, I let my 2 kids do so. Always try to trade up, and to come up with other good items to put in small cahes. If I don't think the trade is even, I'll "double-up". But, I just think it's the nature of the beast, eventually the good items will be depleted.

[+Bill & Tammy]

Google this phrase: "Tragedy of the Commons." It's not a new problem.

Oh great now he is giving us reading assignments.

[tubby and]

i only own 3 caches and one of them is in Uganda. Another is a TB Depot so those two aren't really an issue. Because i have so few, on thing that i do is to show a flow chart of trades. People may trade better if they know that they will be held accountable for what they put in and take out. i have no idea if it works because the difficult terrain rating may be the domininant factor in keeping my contents up there.

[+Vinny & Sue Team]

Yep, what others have said. The more remote a cache, the better the contents over time. It only takes one family with multiple kids to turn a nice cache into junk. And that's with everybody trading "even" - typically item for item, but rarely value for value. Folks who stay in the game over time rarely trade at all; a coterie of likeminded folks rather disinterested in the trade aspects. And often they are the major placers of caches.

Personally, I wouldn't touch a trading stat with a ten foot pole.

I must agree. While we are not "into" trade items, and rarely trade any more, Sue and I have consistently noticed that only very difficult puzzle cahes, and extreme caches, such as true 5/5 (and even true 4/4.5) caches tend to carry quality trade items and be free of junk and geolitter. This brings to mind something that a very respected local cacher said to me when Sue and I first started caching, and that was the observation that while families who have kids do serve some useful functions in society, they are, in general, very hard on cache trade items, and visits by any significant number of families with kids to a cache is almost guaranteed to reduce the quality of swag to junk in no time flat. After 9 months in the sport, I must agree that he was 100% correct. This is simplyan observation on my part (and, I am sure, on the part of the seasoned member of the caching comunity who passed that warning on to me), and is not meant to knock families with kids. In fact, I have been advised that I myself was raised by a family with kids, but the fact remains that they rearely trade even or trade up, at least in this part of the country.

[hide & seekers]

Only time will tell how my A Doggone Good Cache will fair, but so far, it's doing pretty good. While it's not in a "remote" area, it kinda is by some area cacher standards. It's not one people can go out and grab it during a lunch hour. It takes a bit of effort to get there. I know theme caches don't always do well, but since this is a pet-themed one and many people feel strongly about their pets, I think it will work. I even gave suggestions on affordable items.

[Geo-Stu]

Geocaching isn't a game you can police. Every so often people get the idea. Unless you are going to stand by your cache, or someone elses, people are going to do what they are going to do. Alot of people let what those other poeple do get their panties in a bunch. They are idiots, do what you do, enjoy what you do, and if someone does it differant, let them. If you don't like what's in a cache, just sign the log.

[+welch]

Ultimately, we need to somehow incent people to leave good items and take the lesser items. Perhaps someway of maintaining stats around this could help. Any ideas?

I think stats is a buzzword so be warned (and that be difficult to score even if you could get enough to go with it).

 

If people visit the cache it's contents change... If you want to stop it from changing, the choices seem to be 1. don't have anything in it anyways except a logbook, 2. don't tell anyone the cache is there (can't visit what you don't know about), 3. make it difficult or hard to reach (fewer visits, should slow the changes).

[+Snoogans]

Google this phrase: "Tragedy of the Commons." It's not a new problem.

I don't much get into these types of threads because I could could care less what's in a cache.

 

However, this log on a Houston area cache struck me as funny. It's obviously someone who doesn't think much about his sport (over 100 finds) or a joke.

 

You decide:

 

What a hoot!

I left two dead batteries and a fishing cork I found in the woods somewhere before visiting this site. Thanks for the laugh....good imagination on this one.

 

SLTN Left the above!

[+tozainamboku]

However, this log on a Houston area cache struck me as funny. It's obviously someone who doesn't think much about his sport (over 100 finds) or a joke.

 

You decide:

 

What a hoot!

I left two dead batteries and a fishing cork I found in the woods somewhere before visiting this site. Thanks for the laugh....good imagination on this one.

 

SLTN Left the above!

Looks to me like he traded up. In spite the title, my Don't Trade Up cache is intended for exactly this kind of trade

[+Team Cotati]

Solution: Start the cache with garbage contents.

[+RykoalaTeam]

I have to agree in part with Vinny and Sue team. I know I can tell if a cache is kid oriented, so far we typically fins junk and looking at the log the first set of people even up into the 20s they all take good stuff and then all the sudden there is no posts of what left and the cache has junky toys. We see this and we have only been doing it for a month.

 

On the other hand I disagree with it being a kid/family thing.( I dont think you where being rude at all)

 

I was reading though the logs in our area and a cache that was high in difficulty it was stocked with alot of really neat items. like the second person took three items all the mist expensive sounding ones and left nothing and said so. A grown man hello and still depleted a cache of its best things. I have read a few times where alone adults have wrote they took a really nice item and left nothing. My mom is a geocacher she take 4 grandkids with her, they all get to pick something and they always trades equal or better for each and every item. I f they dont have equal items she doesnt take anything.I think its about greed in children and adults.

 

We have been guilty of taking a item we could not equal its worth, we were out of town and a really neat team leaves very cool coins. theres three or four in a baggy they leave. it was a small altiods tin and so we had brought stickers to add to it. We decided it would by far not be fair to take all of them since we could not even close do a equal value trade so we took just one, my conscience plague me days later.

 

we in as little of as a month, dont have the excitement of finding anything, we rarely take anything now, we still bring swag so that we can try to give something semi neat for the next one.

 

Side point, I read lots about how bad Urban micros are ect ect. Hmmmm Atleast you know what you get form them;) to sign a log and have a hunt! They may not be so bad after all.

 

Rykoala's wife

Edited January 11, 2006 by RykoalaTeam

[+piscatore]

Maybe the mindset is wrong. If your looking for value in a cache, look at the chance to get out of doors, the hunt, and the joy of discovery. Select the items you leave to enrich other cachers lives.

 

I don't especially need any of the valuable swag I see listed as desirable but would readily take a book that looked interesting.

 

Hmmm - think I'll start a paperback exchange cache, I have a very large ammo can.

[Copepod]

Paperback book caches - see www.bookcrossing.com - it already happens. By the way, in the 1980s, while travelling a lot in Europe & the Middle East, I used to leave paperbacks in hostels & cheap hotels, swapping where possible with other travellers, always leaving my address in the book and asking the next reader to send a postcard. Several did so. Probably even more would have emailedl if that had been available then.

[+Davispak]

I cache with my kids and I cache alone on occasion. when by myself I like to see what was left by the previous visitors and very rarely take something unless it appeals to me, but I always leave something. I have taken to leaving specific items that are of value, mostly I leave patches (space,police,flag patches) that usually run more than a dollar. I also carry many small toy items that are for filling caches when my kids come with me. I use a two for one formula when they come along. I let them take one thing and replace with two. I also have been known to use my swag I carry to restock a junk filled cache. Remember CITO (Cache IN Trash OUT) doesn't just apply to the stuff on the ground. it also applies to the cache. I have removed junk from caches and replaced with nice stuff. I want people to take the stuff I put in caches and use it to help remind them of that hunt. I think the best compliment was when I read the computer logs of a cache I had hunted, the next person had taken the stuff I had put in there.

So what I'm really saying is, find a signature item and make that what you leave at every cache. Be it a pin, patch, or whatever, let it tell everyone you have been there, not just a log on a small book or web page.

[+wimseyguy]

<snip> In spite the title, my Don't Trade Up cache is intended for exactly this kind of trade 

I love that idea. I may have to make my next full size cache a copy of that theme.

My general solution is to hide micros with a portrait of President Jefferson or Lincoln as the FTF prize.

 

Google this phrase: "Tragedy of the Commons."  It's not a new problem.

Oh great now he is giving us reading assignments.

At least it's better than having to take a test.

Edited January 11, 2006 by wimseyguy

[+Chiro75]

I've given up the expectation of finding something cool. I'm just glad to find the box to begin with!

[+Mule Ears]

Could the primary problem be framed as materialistic kids rather than poor-quality swag? A cache is a box that somebody left in the woods--what reasonable person, big or small, would expect it to contain great riches? Even if a cache contains junk, it's interesting junk, in that somebody brought that junk to this very spot and put it into this box.

 

When I was a kid, my pals and I would often find junk that people had lost or discarded. These items were interesting and intriguing because we had to try to imagine how these things got there. What was this person thinking when they left a golf club/shoe polisher/ski mask/baby carriage/cat-woman sunglasses/photo album/etc. in this vacant lot? What did it mean?

 

If kids are expecting to find good stuff in a geocache and are disappointed when they don't, they're in for a lifetime of disappointment.

[+switchdoc]

For me trading up mostly goes with kids in mind. I know few adults who play this game who are super-worried about whats in the cache. Most of those folks consider the hunt and the journey the real reason to go. But I know there are those families with kids, and for them, I try to make sure I always trade something that a kid would find interesting.

 

We try to buy a few adult trade items as well, but in general I think "If I was 7 and my dad drug me out to the middle of nowhere, would I think this item was at least kind of worth the trip?".

[lost in the woods 2]

I think another "problem" with cache contents degrading in "value" is that not everyone sees the same value of the items inside. Is a mini penlite a fair trade for a compass? How about a coin for a superball? It's all a matter of personal opinion of how we value the items we leave and take, that is why I try to enjoy the journey rather than the destination.

 

Happy caching all!

[+CamoCacher]

Ones man junk is anothers treasure.

 

Also sometimes you never know what you go. At one cache we found this red pastic thingy with a otogonish shaped silver plastic at the top. You could press on the silver a bit and there was a sign that said off and on. We thought what is it. Hung on to it for a bit thinking it might be a broken piece of toy. One day while looking at it we discovered if you turn the silver it plays happy birthday.

[+Renegade Knight]

I am new to geocaching and have found about 10 so far - all with my kids and their friends (ages 8-11). While there is no doubt that much of the enjoyment of caching is in the hunt, there is also surely some excitement in the prospect of finding something cool. If not, then I think caching could be enhanced if there was that prospect. However, the (greedy) economics of geocachine results in people taking the better items from the cache and leaving the lesser items. Over time this results in all the worst stuff being left in the caches. So, I'm wondering if the brighter collective mind out there can come up with a solution to this....

Yes, Leave good stuff. While you may be alone in your own neck of the woods, you won't be alone and every now and then sifting through the McJunk will be rewarded when they come across the gem you left behind through your own good will.

[+fox-and-the-hound]

Reality is what happens, happens. The only caches I have seen that completely defeat this problem are theme caches. My favorite so far has been one dedicated to whistles. You are only invited to trade if you bring a whistle for a whistle. We all have our own strange little themes and vices so I would encourage more to indulge in these theme caches. I know I carried a New Year's Even horn over 400 miles to put in this cache because I didn't have a good "whistle" item the first time

Edited January 12, 2006 by fox-and-the-hound

[+Jhwk]

My solution:

 

TNLNSL - TFTC. Jhwk 1-12-2006

 

I'd say over 90% of my cache visits are now log only...

 

Still working that whole "cool sig item" thingy.

[salmoned]

Trading up is silly and primitive. What's the logical end-result? Everything of value ends up in caches and not in people's hands (being used).

 

A cache is a gift to the community. Consider the contents in the same light.

 

My trades (and I usually trade) are usually of other traded items (garbage in, garbage out) with nothing kept on a permanent basis except items specified as 'prizes'. I do occasionally add new (relatively good) stuff to my caches and finds, being a net giver. I do not expect every cacher to be a net giver however.

[+OxygenDestroyer]

It's a personal thing obviously. I'm new to this, but I like it. I just can't imagine taking something that someone paid good money for and put some thought into and then leaving the next guy a rock, a penny and a bottlecap off the street. Do unto others and all that. If you didn't bring anything worth a dadgum, don't take anything worth a dadgum - take the rock and four pennies. Before I sought my first cache I went out and bought several small little things to put in my cachebag that I think anyone would be happy to find. Nothing extravagant - keychains and penlights and bottle openers and 'shape of the state' fridge magnets and the like. Not expensive... but not garbage either. I don't think there should be a rule.... but I think it would be NICE... if everyone were nice. That's my two cents.

[bogleman]

Since I started last year (before Christmas) I have re-gifted several Christmas presents to my caches. I also put in several hand made trinkets (key chain trinkets, small wooden bowls & wooden throw tops) and other things we have collected around the home.

[+Thrak]

One day I went out and decided to leave something in every cache I found and take nothing but cash - if there was any. My goal was to see if I could collect enough money for a 6 pack of Sierra Nevada Porter (they make it here in town so it's only $5 plus tax, etc.). I didn't do a ton of caches that day but, at the end, I had collected $4.50 and had left somwhere around $15 worth of swag in caches. Not quite enough for the beer but I think I managed to trade up.

 

Now that I'm a more "seasoned" cacher (actually I'm still pretty much a n00b but....) I usually just sign the log. I often look through the swag if muggles aren't an issue. Often I may leave something without taking anything. I don't carry junk in my cache bag so I'm not in danger of leaving any. I carry small items which include gold dollars - they are a nice thing to leave and even fit inside a film can.

[+I.R. Geonut]

However, this log on a Houston area cache struck me as funny. It's obviously someone who doesn't think much about his sport (over 100 finds) or a joke.

 

You decide:

 

What a hoot!

I left two dead batteries and a fishing cork I found in the woods somewhere before visiting this site. Thanks for the laugh....good imagination on this one.

 

SLTN Left the above!

Looks to me like he traded up. In spite the title, my Don't Trade Up cache is intended for exactly this kind of trade

tozainamboku = on the ball into his sport cacher

 

Nice catch tozainamboku

 

I always like to keep the stuff I get from the cache containers to put in the next cache. It's not so hard on my wallet this way.

Edited January 13, 2006 by I.R. Geonut

[+ekanow]

I'm a definate noob here so take my .02 for what it's worth but I made it a point to pack my swag bag with things that, I believe, others would like to find. This includes both items for children as well as adults. I believe IMHO that after enjoying the hunt (most important) that finding something of interest in the cache is the icing on the cake for both my son and myself. I don't mean that it has to be fancy or expensive but just that some thought was used in picking the item to leave.

[nobby.nobbs]

i've local charity shop that sells small bags of marbles or new toy cars and little games. all new and sealed.

so i spent £5 in there and give to a good cause then use them to swap in the caches if there's anything i fancy.

[+Broccoli King]

Just a few cache's under my belt, but this is my approach. I look for groovy outdoor items on sale or clearance and then buy a handful. So although my out-of-pocket is not much, the actual value of the item is decent. Recently I found some good compasses, AA batteries, fishing lures .... on sale, so I'm good for my next twenty cache's, and stocked/placed my first cache today with some of these items. And of course WallyWorld is always a great place to look for stuff. Just remember the groove factor and make sure it works. Also, I have learned to carry one special item with me just in case I come across something very cool and want to make sure I'm trading even.

[+I.R. Geonut]

Update.

 

Every time my son sees a bouncy ball in a cache he has to have it. So I stopped by the dollar store today and spent 5 bucks on:

 

2 bags of 1 dozen bouncy balls. I couldn't resist that one. I have enough right there to last me the rest of the winter dropping 2 or 3 balls in a cache at a time.

 

girly flower power nail polish. 3 Crazy colors in a package. (hey girls cache too)

 

2 packages of silly putty.

 

So for 5 bucks I got a lot of swag for kids and I feel pretty good about it.

[+Lone Duck]

There is no real solution other than owner maintenance, but how many owners can afford to restock their caches every few weeks.

 

I think we just have to face the fact of life that caches eventually fill with garbage and move on.

That is a major reason that caching stopped being fun for me, along with soggy caches. I haven't sought one out in almost two years now, and I'm trying to generate enthusiasm for it again. I've never really traded in the ones that I have found, that's not the motivation. But seeing junk got old.

[+bblhed]

For me, I don't cache for the trade items, I cache for the caches. On occation I have found items that were just too cool to pass up. These are mostly really cool sig items, or just things that appeal to me at the moment, I also have a SAG$ problem. I usualy cary something good with me, and if I take a SAG$ I try to replace it with a paper one. But the reality is that some people will try to take whatever they want and replace it with nothing or junk. But remember, one mans junk is another mans gold.