New Geocoin Up for sale

 Well after a few months of work, emailing and taking my time my first coin is moving into the production circle. I gor my first three samples this week, and here they are.

 

The coins are 1/2" thick and 1-3/4" in diameter, and will have a custome icon.

The front is the scene of Rainbow bridge.  Rainbow bridge is a National Mounument that is considered sacred to the native Americans, and is not visited by many people because of how remote it is.  

The back is from a photo I took at Potter's ponds this last year.  That is the location of the first cache in Utah. The 29th oldest, and one of three for the month of August that can be used for the Jasmer challenge.

At the moment I am taking pre-orders, and reservations.

In eight days I will place the order for them. If you email me at blue.rajah.ut @ gmail.com and let me know if you want to preorder, or reserve a coin.  I will send you an email with a paypal link to pay.  If you plan on catching me at an event, tell me and I will do what I can to get it to you to save the $3 shipping (for 1-2 coins - stateside shipping).

The only ones up for sale will be the nickel and the brass ones. Sorry, I will me making a few of the copper ones, for me.  For me to trade, gifts, family, etc.

I will be placing the order right after thanksgiving. Then 3-4 weeks I will have them (hopefully sooner) and get them all out. So they should be in your hands just before christmas to new years. sometime in that window.

The coin costs $11

Please email me  what coins you want (Brass, Nickle), your mailing address ,  and how many you would like.  If there are any questions I will get back with you.  For those preordering I will email you a paypal invoice for you to pay off of, and so i have record to be able to mail them out.

Thanks for supporting me in the project, and I hope you like them.

***edited to remove preorder and reserved info- people were still trying to do that and they are not available that way anymore***

Update on 2011-11-18 15:40 by firennice

Geocoin time

Well after I made a coin a few years ago I decided it was time for round two.  I have been looking for places for some time, and decided that it was time to dive in.

I got these back today after I spent my time working on them.  Hopefully I will have a sample soon. Needless to say I am exited.

i wanted to find two things, both deal with Utah.  Everyone does delicate arch.  So I thought I would use Rainbow Bridge.  A really cool monument in the desert.  The back came to me after a lot of thought.  I had taken a picture at the location of Potter's Ponds.  So I decided to use that photo for the back, and highlight the cache.

Scouting Geocoins

Here are the last colors of coins we will have.

There are a limited number available this month with more coming in 30 days.  (many on this batch will be reserved for the scout jamboree in three weeks.

Geocoins and Scouting

About a year ago I started work with the UNPC on some projects for the 100th anniversary of Scouting.  I spent a number of weeks convincing them to place the original order. We waffled from 100 to 300 coins.  Never really deciding what to do for months.  Quotes went out to six different companies, and weeded down to two.  For the next three months I played with the design, and I worked on trying to get the best prices for the order that by the time we hit December we were at 200-300 coins in size.  We thought of the risk and really had a hard time deciding. 

Each company kept modifiying their bids, wanting another shot.  We tried to stick with a local company that was near the low bidder, and wanted the business, but had no experience in geocoins.  Finally when the numbers came in we made our choice for Coins and Pins for 300 coins.  Th number was chosen because of thats what the looser wanted as a price point. 

So sometime in Febuary I finalized the design, I was really happy with it and could not wait until the time came.  By March the order was placed.  Then one day in May this massivly heavy box was on my doorstep.  Do you have any idea how much 300 coins weigh?  Lots.

I was so exited, and we had what I had hoped for, but never expected.  70 for a contest, 100 copper and 130 brass for sale.  Up for sale they went, and poof they were gone.  So we ordered more of a slightly different color scheme.  300 to be exact.  then recenly I was told they were gone.  So I changed the color scheme again and we ordered 100 more, two orders for 50 each  made us decide to jump the order to 200.  Now another person from back east is asking for another 130 or so.

So what was orginally an order for 300 that I hoped we would sell, has now turned into 800 with a possibily of 1000 coins with 3-4 different color schemes.  All from the original little hope that we would sell them. 

I am in the process now of finalizing the orders, and getting a design ready for 2011.  It was so sucessful, we are rolling with the next batch.  Thanks for everyone that bought some.  Hopefully you enjoy them.  I have seen 3-4 around, and have bought a number myself.

The contest

The contest is still going on.  If you want one. 120 or so were reserved for the UNPC get in the game contest.  This entailed finding a cache and getting your photo taken and emailing your entry. 

1. Log the cache and upload a photo of yourself/group at the cache site.
2. Email the following info to unpcbsa@gmail.com, Name,cacher ID, Address, Phone #, email, and the name and GC # of the found cache.
3. Please include a story of your cache hunt.
4. Missing or incorrect information may invalidate the entry.
5. Each UNPC Scouts cache will count as one entry (multiple finds on the same cache will not count).
6. A monthly drawing will be performed to determine the coin winners.
7. The contest may be ended, and/or rules modified to fit changing situations, and limited number of coins.
8. Limit one coin per household

We have awarded 50 coins out so far.. with 50-80 more to go.  If you are interested, you and/or your scouts. Please feel free to enter

The coins for the contest are the Antique Silver ones. Except for a few gifts, that is the only way to get one.  So enjoy, and we hope to see your entry soon.

Update 9/27/10

Go here /journal/2010/9/27/scouting-geocoins.html

for a picture of the new coins that arrived today.

Welcome to the Jungle, Bling, and stuff

Welcome to the Jungle

Last night started quietly enough. I left work and headed home.  Everything was quiet, my wife and kids were at seven peaks.  So I sent a sad and lonely message to Jac0b begging him to do something.  I was pretty bored, and did not want to be alone on a nice evening. 

So he wandered over and off we went geocaching.  It was about that point that I realized that my gps was filled with caches from my trip to southern Utah.  So I was at his mercy.  We decided to head off and look for two.

The first was one that I had not found before and apparently needed the help of another village idiot to not be able to find it.  Success!! well if you mean failure.  GC1QB3K Cricket Lake We had no luck at all.  Well we did notice that people almost drained this tiny swamp at one time.  Wow it was sure nice someone put an info sign in the middle of an industrial park at some stupid pond.

Well we headed for the next one.  GC1efeg Computer Geek.  That was apparently was far more difficult then either of us had hoped. But right next to it was a trail heading off into the reeds.  Of course neither one of us could pass this opportunity down.  So off we went down the trail.  We were kicking ourselves that we had not brought a cache container.  What a great place.  Reeds were head high, under and over logs, fish and muskrats were running off.  It was a great place and spooky as well.

Well it just so happened that I had a cache container in my pocket.  Thanks to LV2WJ I had a dna tube in my pocket.  Not what we wanted, but evil anyway. After a long drawn out hike we found a home for the little evil thing.  Today it became GC2B07J Rumble in the Jungle.  We discussed the name for some time.  And there was a desire by one of our party to place a second evil cache here, but perhaps I will come back and place a larger one.

Bling

Woo hoo today my coin came

I thought it looked sweet.  It is possibly the largest coin that I have seen.  2" round or a tiny bit bigger.

Stuff

Today was the new code realease from Geocaching.com.  If you did not notice the little "feedback" button on the right of your screen you should.  It takes you too a new page called "get satisfaction".  It is a specialized forum for sharing ideas, and for reporting and responding to bugs.

For example two of the largest ideas (after about 5 hours) are

Bring Back Virtual Caches with 474 votes in favor, and listed as "under consideration".

Challenge Icon with 272 in favor, also "under consideration" and has the following lackey comment "We are exploring the idea of more official Geocaching Challenges now. There are many different types of challenges so this can be... erm... challenging. I would love to hear your thoughts on what challenges everyone enjoys the most and how they can be better integrated with the site."

There are a number of other tweaks. GC codes pull down to links if you wish to copy them.  Feel free to poke around. Hopefully it is friendlier than ever to play on the site.