What is considered quality swag?

[lilwren]

I want to start placing caches myself and I don’t want to put ‘junk’ in them, but i’m not sure what qualifies as ‘good stuff’. I know everyone complains about the dollar store items and happy meal toys … I see it in every cache that it can be in. can you give me some examples of good vs. bad? Or, what you personally like to find in a cache? I’m quite happy when I find a plastic lizard or frog key ring … but I’m not normal.

Thanks for your help.

p.s. I did search through the forums and came up empty. please be kind … I’m a newbie … if there’s a post I missed don’t flame me.

[isonzo karst]

Swag is like cache placement itself. You hide what you like. You swag with stuff that you'd take yourself in trade, and perhaps with an eye to the likely finders of your cache. If you are placing "walk in the park" caches, the swag can be more child oriented. If your cache is 2 miles out in the swamp, it's going to be found by adults (who aren't there for the swag anyway).

Don't overspend! Be honest about your budget for giving stuff to total strangers, and focus the prime money attention on a quality container. If the log is dry, the cache is good, even if there's nothing in it but the log. If it's wet, it's all junk anyway.

Swag nearly always runs down - the closer to the parking the faster this will happen. So don't worry about it too much.
The reverse is that caches far out from parking may see no trading at all. I've checked some of my own hides that are longer hikes or paddles, and found mostly original swag in them.

[Team Crime Scene]

I personally don't trade items with the exception of coins and travel bugs. The kids on the other hand love out of the ordinary things. We will come home with odd Dice, magnets, magic tricks and I can't tell you how many tiny little play doh tubs we have. Today Skye Walker was collecting shards of glass left in containers by a local cacher. She had some quirky idea for a craft project that I'm sure will be sitting on my kitchen counter soon. The all time favorite though was the fart putty.

TCS

[Cache & Keri]

I like to match the swag to the environs in which the cache is hidden.

An ammo can hidden in a county park which might be found by adults and kids: I place stuff for kids and adults as well. A few inexpensive Wal-Mart items for the adults...ie, a multi tool, mosquito headnet, DEET Wipes, etc. For the kids, I usually place some inexpensive dollar store stuff....ie, army men, sponge balls, miniature truck, dolls for the girls, etc.

For the long hiking and multi-caches.....I like to put some hiking and/or camping stuff into the final ammo can....ie, inexpensive Wal-Mart packaged stuff found in the hiking/camping section.....a small flashlight, waterproof match case, compass, etc.

I prefer to hide fewer (quality) hides than a lot of average hides just to take up space.

[lilwren]

Thank you for the comments … that’s the general conclusion I've made ... having only just started caching. Cache appropriate and don’t leave anything that I wouldn’t want to get. I suppose I needed some reassurance that I was doing the right thing because I don’t have any friends that geocache to bounce the question off of.

i find a lot of caches that just have trash in them ... broken toys ... tattered puzzle pieces ... i wish people would put more thought into their swag items ... maybe it's just adults letting the kids leave what they want ... dunno.

TCS … your comment about the play doh made me LOL … I just left a container of that in a cache the other day and also left an apology in my log to the mom who got stuck with it. When I was a kid I had play doh aaaaall over the house and my mom hated it. Since I’m new at this I like the trading part of it … I guess It’s the kid in me … I can’t wait to see what treasure is in the cache.

Thanks again guys!

[Dale n Barb]

If you happen to do any of our caches we like to see poeple leave $20.00 bills. We perform maintenance after each person logs our caches to take out any swag that is not up to standard.

[lilwren]

very funny

[lilwren]

SEE! this is the reason i brought the subject up ... i find a lot of these. i was just looking for any idea of standards that geocachers may have. apparently this person ... the standards are not so high. there isn’t even a smidge of quality in this cache what so ever ... in any way shape or form.

[Team Crime Scene]

SEE! this is the reason i brought the subject up ... i find a lot of these. i was just looking for any idea of standards that geocachers may have. apparently this person ... the standards are not so high. there isn’t even a smidge of quality in this cache what so ever ... in any way shape or form.

I'll have to say a cache can be depleted fairly quickly. The underwritten rule of "trade even or trade up" is never followed. If you tried to keep dollar store items or better in your cache then you would have to restock it after every two or three finds. If you wiling and able to spend ten bucks a week or so on your cache then you are in the upper echelon of cache owners. Urban easy for kids finds are the worst to keep stocked. We used to stock our local "kid friendly" cache with all those darn beenie babies that have collected here over the years. The very first log went something like this:

Wow! Today we went caching and came to your cache. The four amigos were very excited to see the beenie babies. They each had to have one so we traded four. We didn't have much to leave but we did leave a travel coin. TFTC

And so there it goes.

[isonzo karst]

Swag always runs down.

The post by TCS illustrates exactly how it happens. Those cachers took 4 premium items and left nothing (traveling coins and TBs are NOT trade items). I see this quite a bit. That and a tendency for the FTF to take something (or 2 somethings) and leave nothing. I guess because FTF is special?

I don't see swagging back up my caches as my responsibility. They're going natural.

I've seen some appalling rundown in swag in caches and a few instances of caches getting better.

[lilwren]

thanks again guys. i suppose i had the idea that i was supposed to keep the swag in my caches full of good stuff or else ... off with my head ... or no more beer for you.

[Dale n Barb]

In my opinion as a cache hider it is your responsibility to check on your caches once in a while. You can remove any 'crap" that people have placed in your cache and keep it nice and clean. We have nearly 100 active caches hidden and we maintain them all when needed. As already stated rarely do people trade even let alone up. We have seen many cachers now hiding containers with no swag hoping the community will fill them along the way. I certainly hope you posted a needs maintenance on that cache and put it on your watch list. If the owner does not respond in a short period of time...then needs archived. I am tired of people hiding caches and then completely forgetting about them. If you can't take care of your cache then don't hide it.

[lilwren]

no, i just stated in my log that it needed maintenance and posted the picture. i'm new and don't want to start pissing people off right away. i will do that at your suggestion though ... there isn't even a functioning log in there for goodness sakes.

yes, and throwing out the trash that accumulates in ones own caches has got to be done ... i agree. i guess when people have too many out in too many places it becomes very time consuming to maintain them all. i will most likely learn through my mistakes once i start placing caches myself.

[isonzo karst]

i'm new and don't want to start pissing people off right away.

yeah, it's better to wait a year or two for that

[M&M Melted]

I've solved the problem of swag depletion in all of my caches. I simply start them out loaded full of rocks.

[lilwren]

now that's a great idea!

[flyingpigfarm]

One of my main beefs with Geocaching is in our area many of the medium to large sized caches have either junk or nothing at all in them. I once hiked over an hour into a conservation area on a night cache to find, all alone in the ammo can, one used (and not GENTLY used, either!), pair of ladies fleece gloves. Four of us walked that hour in the dark for this. I was not amused. However, it was not my first fruitless find, so my backpack was stuffed full of some primo kid AND adult swag, and I can say we left that bad boy much more worth finding than we found it! Since we cache under Flying Pig Farm, most of our items feature a flying pig. Our standard item is a pewter flying pig vest pin from a Biker shop. We also leave very small but highly detailed flying pig monopoly charms, and any flying pig jewerly I can find. For kiddie swag we leave games and toys - not happy meal toys, either! - generally featuring farm animals. One of my sons caches under the name He@then and he leaves his custom imprinted guitar picks - these come 144 to a box for thirty bucks and they can carry any name or design you want. My other son caches under Nerdy Cowboy 74 and he leaves mostly cows or horses, but he is also partial to leaving aliens wearing cowboy hats. I also make yarn dolls and leave those as well. We go way out of our way to leave primo stuff for others to find. We mostly, unless we're a FTF, find basically garbage in caches in our area. I don't know why anyone would think a bottle cap from a beer is good, or even appropriate, swag.

[lilwren]

Wow I love the custom guitar pick idea! Tell your son I said thanks for the awesome idea. My hubby plays guitar and I had no idea I could even get those. He will love to be able to leave guitar picks! I make jewelry and crochet items ... was thinking of putting some of those in the caches. I think a little girl would enjoy finding a pink hat and scarf in a treasure hunt. I’m sure the twenty somethings will think I’m an old fart but I don't care … kids like treasure. I can’t afford to purchase high end geocache items right now.

Pretty much every cache that I find is full of junk too. Ooooh the used gloves … that’s just weird … and supremely tacky. I don’t need the swag but I like to keep some items that remind me of the journey to the cache … like a key ring or fridge magnet that reminds me and brings a smile to my face.

I guess if one has ammo box caches the owner ought to keep them full of interesting things so as not to disappoint. It seems most folks just hide a cache and leave it to its own devices. I suppose life gets in the way and it’s hard to keep them stocked sometimes.

Thanks for the ideas flyingpigfarm.

[CacheandKeri]

Bravo flyingpigfarm! It's good to see there are still folks who enjoy finding something after a long hike in the woods or swamp.

btw, sorry about the beer bottle cap, I didn't want to litter

[lilwren]

just being a smart ass ... are ya? STOP leaving beer bottle caps as swag already!

[isonzo karst]

I guess if one has ammo box caches the owner ought to keep them full of interesting things so as not to disappoint. It seems most folks just hide a cache and leave it to its own devices. I suppose life gets in the way and it’s hard to keep them stocked sometimes.

No, the owner is not responsible to monitor the condition of the swag. Or "keep it full of interesting things so as not to disappoint"! Lordy. The owner should monitor for dry, on the coords, with a logbook. Period. Swag happens. Swag deterioration happens overwhelmingly.

If cache owners routinely swagged up, this would actually get worse, not better, as cachers expectations on swag stayed high, without their behavior re trading fairly being affected in the slightest . Swag goes downhill as a function of human nature (see the tragedy of the commons). There's no penalty for trading unfairly and it seems a small thing at the time. But it happens over and over. Couple that with the inevitable overvaluation that people attach to their own stuff, especially their own "signature" stuff, and the tendency to take trade goods, and leave a trackable (something for nothing) and bingo - cache contents drift to junk. So be it. a cache that involves a nice journey to a good location need not also have good swag. And, over time, it's probably not going to....

[lilwren]

Thanks IK! I would certainly prefer not keeping caches stocked with swag ... so that's really cool that it's not expected.

[Clan Riffster]

The underwritten rule of "trade even or trade up" is never followed.

I've noticed a trend with my caches: The harder they are to get to, the longer the swag lasts.
Seriously though, there does seem to be a direct relationship between the folks who hunt park & grabs and swag deterioration. Maybe lazy people just have a higher sense of entitlement? A cache that is 20' from a Wally World parking lot will lose its overall swag value rather kwickly whereas a cache that is nipple deep in a swamp full of alligators, that takes 4 hours to get to, seems to repel the P&G crowd. I'm sure there's a lesson in there somewhere.