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Ever Found Anything of Value on Your Way to a Cache?


wwjd7

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After finding a $20 bill while on a recent caching excursion, it got me to thinking…

 

Have you ever found anything of value on your way to a cache? I’m referring to the journey to a cache, not what was in the cache. I mean in the parking lot, on the trail or maybe even while bushwhacking? I’m not talking about cheap golf balls, pens either… we’re talking hard currency here, cell phones, iPods, radios, rings, etc.

 

To date I’ve found while geocaching…

$5 bill while walking in a hydro right-of-way.

$5 bill in the weeds along a little used rail trail.

$10 bill at a trail head parking lot.

$1 coin at a trail head parking lot.

$3 lottery scratch ticket. I scratched it and won $3.

$5 bill while making a beeline across a soccer field to a cache.

$20 bill about 3 paces off a forest path. Big smile finding this one.

$2 coin in a sandy desert-like area in the middle of a forest.

Haven’t found any cell phones, iPods, MP3 players, or radios… yet.

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I found a smartphone once. It was quite a good one. Unfortunately, there was a facial-recognition lock on it and the battery died shortly after I found it. I took it to a nearby cell phone store and they started charging it and promised to find the owner. Never did find out what happened. It's not a good idea to put a lock on your phone. Their plan was to wait until someone called. Apparently, you can still answer calls, even when it's locked like that.

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Found a keyring with keys. A lot of keys including car and obvious home plus office keys. It was at the given parking coordinates for a cache so I suspected a cacher to be the owner and contacted the previous finders.

 

Wasn't successful, so I turned it in to the lost&found office of the next village there. Soon after that I got a nice letter including 30 EUR from the happy owner. Paid my 1 year premium membership with it. :)

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  •  
  • A twenty dollar bill,
  • Garmin gps, the most basic model, no home coords entered - from tracks and saved coords, the owner lives near me, but it was not returnable from the info in the unit
  • several decent tow straps
  • ammo can (holding actual ammo ;-) this was in the state forest after hunting season, I left it where I found for a couple of months, then grabbed it
  • a decent pfd
  • a Leki hiking pole, which I was able to return to the cacher who lost it
  • a medium sized plastic bin, issued for recycling by a county in north Florida, heck of an item to carry out from where I found it - not real heavy, but bulky.
  • a pedometer
  • several lost dogs
  • many Herty pots
  • knives, most recently (yesterday) a Winchester knife that retails at nearly $200

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I found some items that would become my Travel Bug attachments, in junk piles near caches. And some cool old glass bottles, usually soda bottles, but even medicine bottles from the early 1900s.

 

And I found a cell phone on a paved trail in a county park. Using that phone, I called the most recently phoned person. "Hi, I found this cell phone on the ground just now, and I hope you can help me return it to its owner".

 

The reply was "No, this is a land line! How did you get this number!", and it quickly degraded into an Abbott & Costello routine.

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Found a sleeping bag, all rolled up in it's bag. Aired it out and it's almost new. :D

 

...

That was probably some homeless guy's house....

 

Anyway, I have found several right hand work gloves.

Wild berries (raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, saskatoons)

My sunglasses (in a cache, I had lost them on a previous DNF of that cache)

Ladies Softball

golf balls

 

Never found any money.

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Found a sleeping bag, all rolled up in it's bag. Aired it out and it's almost new. :D

 

...

That was probably some homeless guy's house....

 

Pretty sure wasn't someone's house, it was way out in the open in the desert, on the top of a bush where many dirt roads crossed, pretty sure it came out of a pickup truck. We have come across several homeless camps, usually in the bottom of a ravine (not a good idea due to flash floods) or hidden under trees, we just pass them by.

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Not on the way to an existing cache, but I was out scouting a location for a cache I was looking to place and found a woman's wallet that had obviously been stolen. It was on an out-of-the-way path and had obviously been rifled through. Looked like it had been there for several weeks at least. Fortunately it still had the ID and credit cards, so I drove to the owner's address (which was a mile away) and left it in her mailbox with a note explaining where I found it.

Edited by J Grouchy
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Sorta, kinda. I found a $20 Canadian Bill on sidewalk while going to a Hamilton Tiger Cats game (I'm American). Was I caching? Well I found a couple caches in Gage Park (which I parked near for free) before the game. So I'll count that. And I can tell the OP is definitely Canadian with that "hyrdro reference" in his post. :P

 

Woohoo! Free beer money for the game. I think it bought two.

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I found a cell phone on a trail. Fortunately it still had battery power. With a little detective work (looking at recent calls, etc.) I was able to get the owner's husband on the first try. Owner and phone were reunited within 10 minutes.

 

I set a phone on top of my car once at a Gas Station (To check in on Foursquare, which is a totally moot point now, they might as well not even exist), and it just happened to be stumbled on by a friend of my Daughter's the next morning on a bike ride. They just went with "home" in the address book, and knew who it belonged to. It was a good 3 miles from home, I might add. Anywho, if I ever stumbled on a lost cell phone, I think I'd be pretty good at investigative work to figure out who it belonged to. Hasn't happened yet though.

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I found a cell phone on a trail. Fortunately it still had battery power. With a little detective work (looking at recent calls, etc.) I was able to get the owner's husband on the first try. Owner and phone were reunited within 10 minutes.

 

I set a phone on top of my car once at a Gas Station (To check in on Foursquare, which is a totally moot point now, they might as well not even exist), and it just happened to be stumbled on by a friend of my Daughter's the next morning on a bike ride. They just went with "home" in the address book, and knew who it belonged to. It was a good 3 miles from home, I might add. Anywho, if I ever stumbled on a lost cell phone, I think I'd be pretty good at investigative work to figure out who it belonged to. Hasn't happened yet though.

 

I had 75 or so various demo phones that looked and felt real, I'd leave them in caches and in my log state I left my cell phone behind, last year there were cell phones in pretty much all the local caches and quite often I'd get an email from someone wanting to return it.

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Sorta, kinda. I found a $20 Canadian Bill on sidewalk while going to a Hamilton Tiger Cats game (I'm American). Was I caching? Well I found a couple caches in Gage Park (which I parked near for free) before the game. So I'll count that. And I can tell the OP is definitely Canadian with that "hyrdro reference" in his post. :P

 

Woohoo! Free beer money for the game. I think it bought two.

 

Was it one of the new plastic bills? Because over the past month or so, I have found about $85 in fives, tens and a sand-covered twenty (right next to a cache), all of the new poly-slippery type.

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I found a smartphone once. It was quite a good one. Unfortunately, there was a facial-recognition lock on it and the battery died shortly after I found it. I took it to a nearby cell phone store and they started charging it and promised to find the owner. Never did find out what happened. It's not a good idea to put a lock on your phone. Their plan was to wait until someone called. Apparently, you can still answer calls, even when it's locked like that.

If you don't put a lock on your phone, random strangers or (worse) a pickpocket will have full access to all the stuff you keep in there. This includes all the saved passwords and authentication cookies in your browser, any apps that logs you in automatically, a good portion (if not all) of your online identity. I definitely recommend locking your phone. But add your home number to the emergency call list, so that if someone finds your phone, they can call you. With Android, I know you can add your contact information to the lock screen (mine shows my email address). iOS and WP may have similar functions, I'm not sure.

 

I found a nice pocket knife once. Asked about it in my log. The owner contacted me and I mailed it to him.

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Sorta, kinda. I found a $20 Canadian Bill on sidewalk while going to a Hamilton Tiger Cats game (I'm American). Was I caching? Well I found a couple caches in Gage Park (which I parked near for free) before the game. So I'll count that. And I can tell the OP is definitely Canadian with that "hyrdro reference" in his post. :P

 

Woohoo! Free beer money for the game. I think it bought two.

 

Was it one of the new plastic bills? Because over the past month or so, I have found about $85 in fives, tens and a sand-covered twenty (right next to a cache), all of the new poly-slippery type.

 

I'm afraid I haven't set foot in your Country in slightly over two years. I have no idea what you're talking about. Do you guys have some sort of newfangled plastic money? :P

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I found a smartphone once. It was quite a good one. Unfortunately, there was a facial-recognition lock on it and the battery died shortly after I found it. I took it to a nearby cell phone store and they started charging it and promised to find the owner. Never did find out what happened. It's not a good idea to put a lock on your phone. Their plan was to wait until someone called. Apparently, you can still answer calls, even when it's locked like that.

If you don't put a lock on your phone, random strangers or (worse) a pickpocket will have full access to all the stuff you keep in there. This includes all the saved passwords and authentication cookies in your browser, any apps that logs you in automatically, a good portion (if not all) of your online identity. I definitely recommend locking your phone. But add your home number to the emergency call list, so that if someone finds your phone, they can call you. With Android, I know you can add your contact information to the lock screen (mine shows my email address). iOS and WP may have similar functions, I'm not sure.

 

I found a nice pocket knife once. Asked about it in my log. The owner contacted me and I mailed it to him.

 

Yeah, I'd much rather lose the phone than have some random get access to all of my private information. That is why the phone locks.

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Sorta, kinda. I found a $20 Canadian Bill on sidewalk while going to a Hamilton Tiger Cats game (I'm American). Was I caching? Well I found a couple caches in Gage Park (which I parked near for free) before the game. So I'll count that. And I can tell the OP is definitely Canadian with that "hyrdro reference" in his post. :P

 

Woohoo! Free beer money for the game. I think it bought two.

 

Was it one of the new plastic bills? Because over the past month or so, I have found about $85 in fives, tens and a sand-covered twenty (right next to a cache), all of the new poly-slippery type.

 

I'm afraid I haven't set foot in your Country in slightly over two years. I have no idea what you're talking about. Do you guys have some sort of newfangled plastic money? :P

 

Yessir

 

Apparently it will last longer because it is less paper and more plastic. And seemingly very easy to lose.

 

Here's Chris Hadfield with one of the new fives, hopefully putting it in GC1BE91 as a 2TF prize:

 

5740341d-482b-4e91-b298-08a567aee6b8.jpg

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Sorta, kinda. I found a $20 Canadian Bill on sidewalk while going to a Hamilton Tiger Cats game (I'm American). Was I caching? Well I found a couple caches in Gage Park (which I parked near for free) before the game. So I'll count that. And I can tell the OP is definitely Canadian with that "hyrdro reference" in his post. :P

 

Woohoo! Free beer money for the game. I think it bought two.

 

Was it one of the new plastic bills? Because over the past month or so, I have found about $85 in fives, tens and a sand-covered twenty (right next to a cache), all of the new poly-slippery type.

 

I'm afraid I haven't set foot in your Country in slightly over two years. I have no idea what you're talking about. Do you guys have some sort of newfangled plastic money? :P

 

Yessir

 

Apparently it will last longer because it is less paper and more plastic. And seemingly very easy to lose.

 

Here's Chris Hadfield with one of the new fives, hopefully putting it in GC1BE91 as a 2TF prize:

 

5740341d-482b-4e91-b298-08a567aee6b8.jpg

 

Yeah, it's very slippery. I hate the new bills. <_<

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I found a smartphone once. It was quite a good one. Unfortunately, there was a facial-recognition lock on it and the battery died shortly after I found it. I took it to a nearby cell phone store and they started charging it and promised to find the owner. Never did find out what happened. It's not a good idea to put a lock on your phone. Their plan was to wait until someone called. Apparently, you can still answer calls, even when it's locked like that.

If you don't put a lock on your phone, random strangers or (worse) a pickpocket will have full access to all the stuff you keep in there. This includes all the saved passwords and authentication cookies in your browser, any apps that logs you in automatically, a good portion (if not all) of your online identity. I definitely recommend locking your phone. But add your home number to the emergency call list, so that if someone finds your phone, they can call you. With Android, I know you can add your contact information to the lock screen (mine shows my email address). iOS and WP may have similar functions, I'm not sure.

 

I found a nice pocket knife once. Asked about it in my log. The owner contacted me and I mailed it to him.

 

Yeah, I'd much rather lose the phone than have some random get access to all of my private information. That is why the phone locks.

Most phones allow you to put contact information on the splash screen. Kind of best of both worlds...

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Sorta, kinda. I found a $20 Canadian Bill on sidewalk while going to a Hamilton Tiger Cats game (I'm American). Was I caching? Well I found a couple caches in Gage Park (which I parked near for free) before the game. So I'll count that. And I can tell the OP is definitely Canadian with that "hyrdro reference" in his post. :P

 

Woohoo! Free beer money for the game. I think it bought two.

 

Was it one of the new plastic bills? Because over the past month or so, I have found about $85 in fives, tens and a sand-covered twenty (right next to a cache), all of the new poly-slippery type.

 

I'm afraid I haven't set foot in your Country in slightly over two years. I have no idea what you're talking about. Do you guys have some sort of newfangled plastic money? :P

 

Over on this side of the border we call them credit cards.

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Yeah, I'd much rather lose the phone than have some random get access to all of my private information. That is why the phone locks.

Most phones allow you to put contact information on the splash screen. Kind of best of both worlds...

I have a label with my address on mine (does NOT include the cell phone number). Works even without battery. :)

 

If you don't have a prepaid card but a contract SIM card your provider could identify the owner (you?) of the SIM card in the phone.

 

To get back on topic: I once found a GPSr. It was near the spot of a cache I FTF'd. The GPSr literally gave the position of the cache. The cache owner lost it there, which may explain the >30 meter (>90 feet) offset from the listed coordinates. Owner was glad to get his GPSr back...

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I was out on some levees in the south SF Bay a few months back -- not a high traffic area -- and I happened to look down and see a car key on the ground, slightly stuck in the mud but still pretty freshly left. I picked it up and put it on top of a nearby obvious sort of utility box that was low enough to the ground. About a mile and a half later, this guy comes jogging along from the other way looking worried.

 

"Did you happen to see a key back there?"

"Was it for an Audi?"

"Yes!"

"Today, sir, is your lucky day."

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I was caching in a university town back in the days that I'd still look for multiple micros in the same day. I looked behind a piece of street furniture expecting to find a keysafe and instead found a wallet. The wallet had ID in it identifying the owner as a student, there was a campus building nearby, so I handed the wallet in. It's just as well I had time to spare because it took a while to find anywhere that I could hand it in, and when I finally found the most appropriate place the staff there treated me as if I were doing something suspicious.

 

I found a rather nice hiking pole. I arrived in the parking area (big enough for three cars only, just off a gravel track) to find one other car there and the pole on the ground. Figuring it belonged to the owners of the car I leaned it against the wing mirror on the driver's side so they'd see it when they returned. I got back to the car to find the other car gone and the pole on the ground. The pole now lives in the back of my car.

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Found:

A small switchblade knife

Small pocket knife

ipod 30gb loaded with music (tried to locate owner via Apple and Craigslist - no luck)

New shotgun (probably worth $400 to $500). I was hiding a cache when I found it. The owner came looking for it about 30 minutes later and I gave it back to him.

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Sorta, kinda. I found a $20 Canadian Bill on sidewalk while going to a Hamilton Tiger Cats game (I'm American). Was I caching? Well I found a couple caches in Gage Park (which I parked near for free) before the game. So I'll count that. And I can tell the OP is definitely Canadian with that "hyrdro reference" in his post. :P

 

Woohoo! Free beer money for the game. I think it bought two.

 

Was it one of the new plastic bills? Because over the past month or so, I have found about $85 in fives, tens and a sand-covered twenty (right next to a cache), all of the new poly-slippery type.

 

I'm afraid I haven't set foot in your Country in slightly over two years. I have no idea what you're talking about. Do you guys have some sort of newfangled plastic money? :P

 

Oh no sounds like you have our (Aussie ) money. You guys will learn not to pocket the notes they spring back out. :)

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Sorta, kinda. I found a $20 Canadian Bill on sidewalk while going to a Hamilton Tiger Cats game (I'm American). Was I caching? Well I found a couple caches in Gage Park (which I parked near for free) before the game. So I'll count that. And I can tell the OP is definitely Canadian with that "hyrdro reference" in his post. :P

 

Woohoo! Free beer money for the game. I think it bought two.

 

Was it one of the new plastic bills? Because over the past month or so, I have found about $85 in fives, tens and a sand-covered twenty (right next to a cache), all of the new poly-slippery type.

 

I'm afraid I haven't set foot in your Country in slightly over two years. I have no idea what you're talking about. Do you guys have some sort of newfangled plastic money? :P

 

Oh no sounds like you have our (Aussie ) money. You guys will learn not to pocket the notes they spring back out. :)

 

Well how about that? I believe the day after I posted I haven't set foot in Canada in over 2 years, I found out I was going again. I have received and spent some, and am currently in possession of a $5 bill of plastic money. It's pretty bizarre, I have to tell you. I'm not expecting to see that innovation here on the American side any time soon, if ever. :P

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Sorta, kinda. I found a $20 Canadian Bill on sidewalk while going to a Hamilton Tiger Cats game (I'm American). Was I caching? Well I found a couple caches in Gage Park (which I parked near for free) before the game. So I'll count that. And I can tell the OP is definitely Canadian with that "hyrdro reference" in his post. :P

 

Woohoo! Free beer money for the game. I think it bought two.

 

Was it one of the new plastic bills? Because over the past month or so, I have found about $85 in fives, tens and a sand-covered twenty (right next to a cache), all of the new poly-slippery type.

 

I'm afraid I haven't set foot in your Country in slightly over two years. I have no idea what you're talking about. Do you guys have some sort of newfangled plastic money? :P

 

Oh no sounds like you have our (Aussie ) money. You guys will learn not to pocket the notes they spring back out. :)

 

Well how about that? I believe the day after I posted I haven't set foot in Canada in over 2 years, I found out I was going again. I have received and spent some, and am currently in possession of a $5 bill of plastic money. It's pretty bizarre, I have to tell you. I'm not expecting to see that innovation here on the American side any time soon, if ever. :P

Since we're still arguing about the penny (one cent coin) I don't see the US going to a more durable money any time soon.

New Zealand also uses a plastic money, with see through bits too.

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Sorta, kinda. I found a $20 Canadian Bill on sidewalk while going to a Hamilton Tiger Cats game (I'm American). Was I caching? Well I found a couple caches in Gage Park (which I parked near for free) before the game. So I'll count that. And I can tell the OP is definitely Canadian with that "hyrdro reference" in his post. :P

 

Woohoo! Free beer money for the game. I think it bought two.

 

Was it one of the new plastic bills? Because over the past month or so, I have found about $85 in fives, tens and a sand-covered twenty (right next to a cache), all of the new poly-slippery type.

 

I'm afraid I haven't set foot in your Country in slightly over two years. I have no idea what you're talking about. Do you guys have some sort of newfangled plastic money? :P

 

Oh no sounds like you have our (Aussie ) money. You guys will learn not to pocket the notes they spring back out. :)

 

Well how about that? I believe the day after I posted I haven't set foot in Canada in over 2 years, I found out I was going again. I have received and spent some, and am currently in possession of a $5 bill of plastic money. It's pretty bizarre, I have to tell you. I'm not expecting to see that innovation here on the American side any time soon, if ever. :P

Since we're still arguing about the penny (one cent coin) I don't see the US going to a more durable money any time soon.

New Zealand also uses a plastic money, with see through bits too.

 

We don't like changes over here. Penny coins, One dollar bills, the Metric system, whatever. Hey, is this like the end of WheresWilly.com, the Canadian equivalent of WheresGeorge.com? How are you going to stamp those things? I'd imagine it's been discussed at the WheresGeorge and WheresWilly forums, but I'm not into that stuff too much. :huh:

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Since we're still arguing about the penny (one cent coin) I don't see the US going to a more durable money any time soon.

New Zealand also uses a plastic money, with see through bits too.

 

Did you know the Royal Canadian Mint produces or has produced coinage for 75 different countries including New Zealand and the USA.

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Since we're still arguing about the penny (one cent coin) I don't see the US going to a more durable money any time soon.

New Zealand also uses a plastic money, with see through bits too.

 

Did you know the Royal Canadian Mint produces or has produced coinage for 75 different countries including New Zealand and the USA.

I didn't know the Canadian Mint did more than Canadian currency, but that is neat. I collect both coins and stamps, yep geocaching isn't the nerdiest thing I do.

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Since we're still arguing about the penny (one cent coin) I don't see the US going to a more durable money any time soon.

New Zealand also uses a plastic money, with see through bits too.

 

Did you know the Royal Canadian Mint produces or has produced coinage for 75 different countries including New Zealand and the USA.

I didn't know the Canadian Mint did more than Canadian currency, but that is neat. I collect both coins and stamps, yep geocaching isn't the nerdiest thing I do.

 

If you haven't yet, check out the RCM, they are cutting edge when it comes to coins.

 

One of my favourites was the fossil set of coins.

 

Now this I'd love to find while geocaching, a 1 kilogram gold coin honouring when Canada whooped America's butt, worth $69,000.

Edited by Roman!
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Since we're still arguing about the penny (one cent coin) I don't see the US going to a more durable money any time soon.

New Zealand also uses a plastic money, with see through bits too.

 

Did you know the Royal Canadian Mint produces or has produced coinage for 75 different countries including New Zealand and the USA.

I didn't know the Canadian Mint did more than Canadian currency, but that is neat. I collect both coins and stamps, yep geocaching isn't the nerdiest thing I do.

 

If you haven't yet, check out the RCM, they are cutting edge when it comes to coins.

 

One of my favourites was the fossil set of coins.

 

Now this I'd love to find while geocaching, a 1 kilogram gold coin honouring when Canada whooped America's butt, worth $69,000.

Too late. They are sold out. (Who has $69 000 extra sitting around for a coin collection?)

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