Fig 1, Flower of Life geocoin
Frequently Asked Questions (or FAQ for short)
Probably not. The vast majority of geocoins in geocaches have been purchased by someone in the geocaching community and they are the owner. The owner has then activated their geocoin and given it a mission or task to complete. It is not yours to keep or sell. You should move it along and place it in another geocache.
To get your own geocoins you need to do one of the following: find a gift geocoin in a cache, win a geocoin at an event or in the Geocoin Discussions forums, have one sent mysteriously to you, be gifted one, get one made, trade with another geocacher, or buy some.
Some people sell their newly minted personal geocoins in the Geocoin Discussions forums (very rarely these days), some sell geocoins they no longer want via the Geocoin Discussions forums also. Others sell geocoins on eBay, but your best option when starting out is to buy some geocoins from one of the numerous online geocoin stores. Always look in the stores first as sometimes people sell geocoins on eBay for lots, when they are still available in the geocoin stores for much less!
Here is a list of the most common geocoin stores (with the most prolific producers at the top). Most, if not all, will ship internationally.
Geoswag
DirectMint
Coins and Pins
The Geocoin Store
Landsharkz
Crake Productions
Tsunrisebey Designs
Cache Addict
Geocoin Design
USA Geocoins
Geocoinshop.de
The Caching Place
Hog Wild Stuff
DorkFish Geocoins
Geocoins must be manufactured via a Groundspeak approved vendor. (Groundspeak are the people behind geocaching.com.)
All of the companies listed above who sell geocoins will also help you get your own geocoins manufactured, but see the Geocoin and Trackable Minting, Geocoin Reference, Shipping, Activating, Adopting, Shopping, Courtesy, Do’s & Don’t Guide To Geocoins & FAQs! thread pinned at the top of the Geocoin Discussions forums for a fuller list.
Don’t rush into getting your own personal geocoin made as soon as you find out about geocoins. Give it a good period of time while you learn about geocoins and what’s out there. All of the major mints that manufacture geocoins are based in China, so this is a very good reason to go through a vendor to get yours made – thus avoiding the pit falls.
It is not economical to get just a few of your own geocoins made. The moulds alone are hundreds of dollars. But, if you make your own items at home, an easy way to make them trackable is to buy some Travel Bug travel tags and use the tracking numbers from them on your items – or just attach your item to the TravelBug tag. Of course they won’t have their own icon, etc on geocaching.com’s website, but they will be trackable.
A personal geocoin is one made by a geocacher to represent themselves, rather than an event or some facet of geocaching.
When a gift geocoins is left in a geocache it is treated like all cache swag – you can trade for it, but you should trade even, trade up, or don’t trade at all.
Sometimes (rarely) an unactivated geocoin is left in a geocache. Often these will be as a gift to the cache owner (there will usually be a note saying as such). Sometimes they are left for the next finder. In instances such as this they should be treated in the same manner as cache swag/trade items – you trade it for something of equivalent or greater value, usually another unactivated geocoin. This is the normal geocaching etiquette as with all cache trade/swag items.
Fig 2, A close up of a geocoin showing the Tracking Number
This number (PTAAAA in Fig. 2 above) is called the Tracking Number and is a unique identifier for this geocoin. No two geocoins have the same Tracking Number.
The Tracking Number is the number engraved on the geocoin and is meant to always be kept private. People who find a geocoin use the Tracking Number to log their Retrieve, Grab or Discover log of it. Without the Tracking Number it is impossible to log a Retrieve, Grab or Discovery. A publicly available Tracking Number would allow anyone who has it to log the geocoin – this is bad, bad, bad and will likely lead to Groundspeak locking the geocoins home page.
The Reference Number is the TB number on the geocoins home page. This number can be given out publicly to allow people to find the geocoins home page, but will not allow them to log the geocoin.
When you log a geocoin (Retrieve, Grab or Discover) you will get an icon for that geocoin (and it’s name) listed on the Trackables page on your Profile – under the Trackables Moved/Discovered heading. It also adds to the total count of geocoins that you have discovered or moved.
Some trackable geocoins have a Tracking Number plus a Series Number. The Series Number is something that the geocoin designer has decided to add to their geocoins, and is not used on geocaching.com.
An Activation Code is a number or phrase that is required, along with the Tracking Number, to activate a geocoin on the geocaching.com website. The Activation Code might be provided with the geocoin at the time of purchase, or may need to be retrieved from a website.
There are a number of places you can go to get Activation Codes. Check the packaging with the geocoin to see if it points you where to go. If it is a geocoin you’ve bought from a coin store, then the first place to try would be their website (see list below). If you’ve purchased it from another geocacher or from eBay, or traded it then try the person who sold/traded you the geocoin, or again the website of the manufacture (if you know it).
Geocaching.com now also have an Activation Code Retrieval page that will work for most geocoins, but in some instances this will still refer you to the manufactures page to retrieve the Activation Code. You could also try posting in the Activation Code Clearing House thread (in Groundspeak’s Geocoin Discussions forum) for the answer. Do not post a new thread asking where to find it – the Activation Code Clearing House thread is the correct place to ask.
Here is a list of most, but not all the sites where you might find the activation code you are looking for. There are some notes at the bottom regarding sites that no longer exist.
Oakcoins – for Geoswag geocoin Activation Codes
coincodes – contains many, many activation codes, especially for Coins and Pins and USA Geocoins
Coins and Pins
Crake Productions
Geocoin Design
Hog Wild Stuff
Cache Addict
Geocoin Club
The Caching Place
Castle Coins & Pins – Try Groundspeaks Activation Code Retrieval and Geocoin Design
Go to the geocache listing page for the geocache you grabbed the geocoin from and the geocoin will appear in Inventory list for that geocache (found down the right-hand side of the page). Click on the geocoins link in the Inventory and you will be taken to the geocoins home page. There will be a link on that page for the Owner, click on the owners name and you’ll be taken to their profile page and from there there should be a way of contacting them. Explain the situation clearly and hopefully they will send you the geocoins Tracking Number.
NOTE – the geocoins owner may choose to [virtual] grab the geocoin and do a virtual drop into the geocache where it now resides themselves.
There are 2 reasons why you would usually get The Travel Bug you requested does not exist in the system message. The first is that you’ve enter a Series Number not the Tracking Number for that geocoin. The most common reason is that you have confused some of the characters in the Tracking Number. The most common confusions are between 1, I and L; B and 8; S and 5; 4 and A; 7 and Z; and O and 0. Try swapping these around to see if you get the right Tracking Number.
There are many reasons as to why you would or would not activate your geocoins. If you are sending them travelling with a mission or task, then you would definitely activate them. Usually (but not always) unactivated geocoins have a higher resale value if you intended to sell them one day. You might like sharing your geocoin collection with other people at events and you want them to be able to discover them and get the coins icon against their profile, or to use a particular geocoin as a personal geocaching milage counter – both instances you will again want to activate your geocoin.
See this thread in the Geocoin Discussions forum for more discussion on this: Activated vs. unactivated coins – Pros and cons
So what can you now do with your activated geocoin?
Give it a mission/goal – when you activate a geocoin you are given the opportunity to assign your trackable item a goal (or mission). This could be anything from just traveling around, right through to something specific as making it to a particular geocache or caching event.
As a Mileage Counter – when you visit a geocache or event cache you dip your geocoin in to collect miles. It will show the distance you have covered whilst out geocaching.
Take it to events to be discovered – take your activated geocoins to events and allow others to marvel over them and discover them. If taking a few geocoins it could be a good idea to take printed copies of a list with their Tracking Numbers on it to make it easier for people. Also, keep a close eye on them as sometimes people think they can pick them up and move them on to a geocache.
Sitting in your collection – finally, you might have wanted to just collect the icon for the geocoin against your profile so your geocoin sits in your collection.
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Geocoin Club
Geoswag Coin and Pin Club
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Sometimes geocoins are produced in different metal finishes and differing quantities. These often get listed as RE, LE, XLE and this gives an indication to the scarcity of the various finishes. There are no hard and fast rules and everyone operates in their own way, but generally the following applies.
RE = Regular Edition – This is the standard, regular edition of a geocoin and will have been minted in the greatest quantity – anywhere from a 50 to thousands… Often when a coin is reminted, then it will be done in the Regular Edition.
SE – Special Edition – There are normally less special edition coins minted than the regular edition, but not so few as to make it a limited edition. I could be that someone minted a Special Edition of their coin using glitters rather than sold colour enamels, for example. Also, often coins can be reminted in Special Editions
LE – Limited Edition – Significantly less coins are minted in Limited Edition than in Regular or Special Edition. Rule of thumb is x%. An unwritten rule is that Limited Editions are never reminted – once they’ve been minted in the LE colours/metal/etc then that is it.
XLE – Extremely Limited Edition –
XXLE – X Limited Edition –
AE – Artists Edition – This is a special edition minted especially for the Artist, maybe as payment by the coin retailer, or as something special for the artist/designer to trade/sell. Usually minted in a very small number of between 5 and 20.
G – Gold – usually a shiny or bright gold plating
S – Silver – usually a shiny or bright silver plating
B – Bronze plating
N – Nickel – shiny nickel plating
BN – Black Nickel plating
AG – Antique Gold plating
AS – Antique Silver
AB – Antique Bronze
SS – Satin Silver
SG – Satin Gold
SG – Satin Gold
SG – Satin Gold
SG – Satin Gold
SG – Satin Gold
IHE – Imitation Hard Enamel
HTF – Hard To Find
VHTF – Very Hard To Find
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Yes, there are some sites that try to list all the geocoins minted, but (to my knowledge) there is no one site that has them all. There is this page on geocaching.com that has the names and icons of them all, but no other details on editions/finishes, numbers, etc. There are new geocoins being released all the time, so it is a big job to keep up with them all.
And before you ask – no one makes a catalog of all geocoins released. Lots of people have suggested it, but so far this hasn’t been taken up by anyone or any firms.
Here are some sites that list geocoins:
Geocoin Collection/The Geocoin Archives
CoinTracking.com
That is entirely up to you. If you want to set a mission for your geocoin and then drop it into a cache then go for it. It will hopefully delight many a geocacher on its travels. BUT, less and less geocoins are being released into the wild due to the increasing incidence of geocoin theft. Research where you are going to release your geocoin first, as although geocoin theft happens right around the planet, there are areas where it is prolific and geocoins often don’t make it one geocache before they are stolen!
This is not meant to put you of releasing geocoins into the wild, but to fore warn you.
Ultimately there is nothing that will put off a geocoin thief, but some things people do to their geocoins to try to deter the geocoin thieves are:
drill one or two holes through the geocoin
thread aviation cord or similar through the drilled holes
add a laminated tag on to the cord that clearly states the geocoin is a traveler and is not meant to be kept
Not necessarily. If could be, even though it is has been reported as not being in the geocache by another geocacher, that it is in the hands of a geocacher who has picked it up and is traveling and has yet to log it, or someone who has forgotten to log it or forgotten about it and it is sitting in the bottom of their pack, or a new geocacher who is unsure what to do with it. If it has been missing for more than 4 to 6 weeks you could try contacting some of the visitors to the geocache around the period it went missing to see if they saw it, or if they’ve picked it up and forgotten to log it. ALWAYS be courteous – it definitely helps.
And never give up hope – some geocoins turn up again many months or even years later!
If your geocoin has definitely been stolen (someone has informed you of this, or a geocacher has logged that they are keeping it) then try to make contact with the person who has it and politely explain that you are the geocoins owner and that your geocoin is a traveler – not to be kept for someones collection. It could have been a new geocacher who has picked it up and is unsure about the rules around geocoins.
Lots! There are different ways that you can go about it, and some of them keep your cost to a minimum.
If you were making just 100 geocoins, here are some of the costs involved (very much estimates): Tracking Numbers from Groundspeak ($150), custom icon ($150), die costs ($100), coin minting $$$ (could be anywhere from a few hundred dollars for a really basic design, to many hundreds of dollars for a 3D design, lots of colour/colours, and a complicated shape and design. Plus there will be the cost of shipping from the mint to you.
One way to minimise the cost to you is to see if a online geocoin store will mint and sell you design. That way your only cost could be the geocoins you want for yourself.
There are several sites that allow you to do this for free or for a fee. The best call for a quick trade is the GEOCOIN TRADING, WANTS, OFFERS AND LISTS thread in the Geocoin Discussions forum.
Utah Geocachers UTAG GeoCoin Tracker site is a good free place to start. They allow you to compile your own person Seeking/Keeping/Trading lists. Use the See All Trading Lists link.
Geocoin Collection/The Geocoin Archives is a good paid site for your Seeking/Keeping/Trading lists, but is currently unavailable for subscribers while they redevelop the site.
CoinTracking.com is another good paid site.
This is a work in progress…
keewee's All About Geocoins 