January 2019 - Watch Me!

This item is password protected and available to members of The Geocoin Club only. If you are a member of The Geocoin Club, you will receive the month's password in club newsletter email.

January 2019 - Watch Me!

Design notes from Chris:  

In the fall of 2013 I was contacted to create a unique award for a geocaching competition.  I had several ideas, but each kept revolving around an idea that was suggested of "a geocoin people who share constantly and not just while caching".  I had several good ideas generated from the idea, but one in particular really stuck with me.  I worked up some sketches and provided some single and multi-piece variations for a presentation.  While the initial idea was received with some enthusiasm, it unfortunately was changed so many times that it simply wasn't anything like my original idea by the time it went to production.  Like so many other grand(or ridiculous) ideas, it was shelved (but not forgotten) in my graveyard of coin ideas.  

5 years passed and a number of those other ideas came to be produced, but this one, the original idea still haunted my "unclaimed geocoin designs" folder.  When the chance came for a January functional, I considered a number of other ideas, but I just wasn't inspired.  At the heart of every geocoin design session, an artist simply craves that inspiration that makes them excited and maybe even a little anxious.  While I sketched, I started reconsidering what defined "functional" in a geocoin.  Travel?  Discovery?  Collection?  What about inspiration?  One of the greatest comments that ever passes my ears is "Your coin inspired me to..."  Regardless of the end result the inspiration is what defines art... the communication of an idea or ideal.  

So I wanted a coin that would inspire a call to action.  It should inspire people daily if possible and since it's a geocoin, it should inspire people to cache.  That was the moment my mind snatched back up an old, rejected and discarded idea to once again give it life.  It would be simple and elegant.  It would be casual enough for every day display and classy enough to be dressed up on occasion with a patent leather band when called upon.  It would remind constantly on the surface that every day is an opportunity for new discoveries and adventure.  When removed it would reveal hidden treasure that would hopefully inspire with the words etched on the heart of John Muir.  This would redefine for me the idea of "function" in a geocoin. Consequently,  I would also begin to habitually check the time about three dozen instances each day and be reminded it's time to go find another cache. It's time.