Geocoins are tokens used in the sport of geocaching. They come in all sorts of shapes and size, but are mostly commonly a circular disc or something approximating a circular disc. They were traditionally made of metal, but lately ones made of glass and rock have been made.
Geocoins should not be confused with signature items (abbreviated sig items) which are made by geocachers and dropped into caches as a personal calling card. Sig items are made of almost anything and in any shape or size.
Geocoins can be trackable or non-trackable. A trackable geocoin has a unique identifying number engraved onto (called the Tracking Number) it allowing it to be tracked via a website, usually geocaching.com. The Tracking Number on a Trackable geocoin is associated with an Activation Code which allows a geocoin to be activated on geocaching.com. At this point the geocoin gets it’s very own web page on geocaching.com to allow the owner to let people know about their geocoin and finders of it to log their find.
When a geocoin is activated it gets a second reference number, starting with the prefix TB. The Reference Number allows the geocoin to be publicly referenced without giving away the Tracking Number. An example of this is my 2006 Kiwi Geocoin with the Reference Number of TBYP5N. This is the number I can use to let other people know about my geocoin, they can use TBYP5N to find my geocoin via Geocaching.com’s Trackables page. But without the Tracking Number geocachers will not be able to Retrieve, Grab or Discover my geocoin.
Tracking Numbers are six characters long and within a geocoin edition they will all share the same first two characters. For example, my 2006 Kiwi Geocoin‘s Tracking Number starts with KG, as do all the 2006 Kiwi Geocoins.
keewee's All About Geocoins 