These days I have a reasonable collection of geocoins. It’s not a huge collection and most of them are mine for a particular reason. Maybe a geo-achivement coin to mark a milestone, or an attendee coin from a Mega that I went to. Others were gifted to me by friends, some are mementos of places I’ve visited and then there’s a few ‘personal interest’ inclusions, such as space-themed coins.
But that wasn’t always the case. The first coin I ever owned was a rather unassuming Japanese flag micro coin. They were being sold in part to raise funds for those affected by the 2011 earthquake, tsunami and resulting nuclear disaster at the Fukishima power plant in Japan. I had yet to embrace the phenomenon of coin collecting then, and was largely motivated by altruism. The original description I gave the coin read like this:
“This coins brings thoughts, prayers and hope to the people of Japan. It is a limited edition coin sold to raise funds for victims of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that devastated the country causing loss of life and widespread destruction. At the time that it was released, workers were still battling to save the crippled nuclear power plant at Fukushima. “
Back then, the idea that you’d buy a trackable coin just to keep in a drawer somewhere, or on a shelf, was an alien concept. This was, to me, just a kind of TravelBug and so I made plans for its release. In February that year I found myself at a work-related conference in Pleshey, Essex, and chose the nearby Church Micro cache there as a suitable host. It seemed apprpriate: a micro cache for a micro coin. One evening, after dinner, I excused myself, walked across the village and dropped the coin into the film-pot cache at the church.
A couple of weeks later it was picked up, moved on and then dropped into another cache. Over the next couple of years it continued its travels from cache to cache, mostly staying in the south-east and south-west of England but with overseas forays to Paris and the Algarve. But it was during its stay in the west country that it was picked up by Liammoore1991 on 29th March 2013 with the brief comment that it would ‘soon be in London’. And then nothing.
He had only started caching a couple of days before and had logged just six finds. A few weeks later I noticed that it was still in his possession. It hadn’t been logged into any other caches, hadn’t been ‘dipped’or visited anywhere. I put this down to his being a ‘newbie’ and unaware of such conventions. I sent him a friendly message, encouraging him to drop it into a cache from where it could continue its journey. A few months later I’d had no response, so sent another message. By now I’d assumed that perhaps he just hadn’t got into caching and had given up. Worried that he’d forgotten about the coin, once again I exorted him to drop it off, or even to post it back to me. Again, no response, and so I gave up, writing the coin off as missing/lost.
However, some months later, now with a growing collection of coins which I kept to share with other players, I decided to have one more try in the hope of retrieving my first coin and adding it to the others. I wrote one last message, acknowledging that he probably wasn’t geocaching anymore but that I was willing to pay for the postage costs for him to post it back to me. Again, nothing.
The a few weeks later I received an unexpected and emotional message from Liam’s geocaching account. But it wasn’t Liam, it was his parents. After picking up the coin, in February 2014, Liam had been involved in a serious motorbike accident, tragically sucumbing to his injuries and passing away.
His effects, including items which were about his person at the time of the accident, had been returned to them and they had put them away, unwilling to engage with items which reminded them of his accident and death, but equally unable to dispose of them. Among them was my coin. His father had noticed it, thought it looked significant but, unsure what to do with it and still grieving, once more put it to one side and forgot about it.
Sometime later, and now having access to his son’s various online accounts, he noticed an email generated by my last message. He then contacted me to explain what had happened to Liam and that he had the coin. After paying my respects, it was agreed that the coin would be returned to me. And so it came back to me and has formed the heart of my collection ever since.
It’s been ten years now since Liam’s death and I still think of him. I rededicated the coin in memory not just of the victims of Fukashima, but now also of Liammoore1991, the fledgling cacher whose life was taken from him and who was, briefly, the holder of my first geocoin.
Tentmantent February 2024
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