Oldest Cache That You Found...Active or Archive

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gsmom59
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Re: Oldest Cache That You Found...Active or Archive

Post by gsmom59 »

My oldest is GC55E, Falls of Ohio, placed 3/25/01 found in June of this year early Sun. morning of a very fun 10 state caching run done in less than 48 hours!
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Re: Oldest Cache That You Found...Active or Archive

Post by GizmoGuy411 »

This is a repost of my original message, posted, Wed 2009-Feb-25/23:05 with a couple more caches added to pay them proper homage.<br><br>

<table border="10" id="table1" bgcolor="#FFFFE1" bordercolor="#000000" bordercolorlight="#C0C0C0" bordercolordark="#000000">
<tr>
<td align="center"><font face="Verdana" size="1"><b>CACHE NAME</b></font></td>
<td align="center"><font face="Verdana" size="1"><b>CG<br>
CODE</b></font></td>
<td align="center"><font face="Verdana" size="1"><b>CACHE<br>
NUMBER</b></font></td>
<td align="center"><font face="Verdana" size="1"><b>DATE<br>
HIDDEN</b></font></td>
<td align="center"><font face="Verdana" size="1"><b>HIDDEN BY</b></font></b></td>
<td align="center"><font face="Verdana" size="1"><b>DATE<br>
I FOUND</b></font></td>
<td align="center"><font face="Verdana" size="1"><b>STATUS as<br>
of 09/21/09</b></font></td>
<td align="center"><font face="Verdana" size="1"><b>DISTINCTIONS</b></font></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><font face="Verdana" size="1">Marblehead Quarry</font></td>
<td><font face="Verdana" size="1">
<a target="_blank" href="http://coord.info/GC2FD">GC2FD</a></font></td>
<td><font face="Verdana" size="1">765th</font></td>
<td><font face="Verdana" size="1">02/18/2001</font></td>
<td><font face="Verdana" size="1">arteitle</font></td>
<td><font face="Verdana" size="1">02/24/2001</font></td>
<td><b><font color="#FF0000" face="Verdana" size="1">archived</font></b></td>
<td><font face="Verdana" size="1">- My 1st find.<br>
- Oldest cache<br>
I've found.<br>
- Oldest Ohio<br>
Geocache I've found.</font></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><font face="Verdana" size="1">East Side Docks River Run 1</font></td>
<td><font face="Verdana" size="1">
<a target="_blank" href="http://coord.info/GC35C">GC35C</a></font></td>
<td><font face="Verdana" size="1">860th</font></td>
<td><font face="Verdana" size="1">02/24/2001</font></td>
<td><font face="Verdana" size="1">Joe & Nicki</font></td>
<td><font face="Verdana" size="1">02/26/2001</font></td>
<td><b><font color="#FF0000" face="Verdana" size="1">archived</font></b></td>
<td><font face="Verdana" size="1">- Toledo's 1st cache.<br>
-
My 1st Toledo find.<br>
-
My 1st FTF.<br>
-
Toledo's 1st FTF.</font></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td height="24"><font face="Verdana" size="1">Squirrel nutkin</font></td>
<td height="24"><font face="Verdana" size="1">
<a target="_blank" href="http://coord.info/GC363">GC363</a></font></td>
<td height="24"><font face="Verdana" size="1">867th</font></td>
<td height="24"><font face="Verdana" size="1">02/24/2001</font></td>
<td height="24"><font face="Verdana" size="1">Jeff and Denise.<br>
Adopted by Stan&Ruth</font></td>
<td height="24"><font face="Verdana" size="1">03/03/2001</font></td>
<td height="24"><b><font color="#00FF00" face="Verdana" size="1">active</font></b></td>
<td height="24"><font face="Verdana" size="1">- Oldest active<br>
I've found.<br>
- Oldest Michigan<br>
cache I've found</font></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><font face="Verdana" size="1">Power Lady</font></td>
<td><font face="Verdana" size="1">
<a target="_blank"href="http://coord.info/GC34E">GC34E</a></font></td>
<td><font face="Verdana" size="1">846th</font></td>
<td><font face="Verdana" size="1">02/24/2001</font></td>
<td><font face="Verdana" size="1"><span id="CacheOwner">Kevin & The
Hobach's</span>  </font></td>
<td><font face="Verdana" size="1">03/04/2001</font></td>
<td><b><font color="#00FF00" face="Verdana" size="1">active</font></b></td>
<td><font face="Verdana" size="1">- The 2nd oldest<br>
active cache I've found.</font></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><font face="Verdana" size="1"><span id="CacheName">Creaking Tree,
Hidden Cache</span></font><b><font face="Verdana" size="1"> </font></b></td>
<td><font face="Verdana" size="1">
<a target="_blank" href="http://coord.info/GC403">GC403</a></font></td>
<td><font size="1" face="Verdana">1027th</font></td>
<td><font face="Verdana" size="1">03/05/2001</font></td>
<td><font face="Verdana" size="1">MrWarren51</font></td>
<td><font face="Verdana" size="1">03/08/2001</font></td>
<td><b><font color="#00FF00" face="Verdana" size="1">active</font></b></td>
<td><font face="Verdana" size="1">- Oldest active Ohio<br>
cache I've found</font></td>
</tr>
</table>
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Stumpy75
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Re: Oldest Cache That You Found...Active or Archive

Post by Stumpy75 »

I can't make it as pretty as GG, but here's my oldest 10.

CACHE, NAME, OWNER, PLACED, I FOUND
GC30, Mingo, The Kansas Stasher, 5/11/2000, 11/10/2006
GC57, Geocache, Dan Rich, 9/9/2000, 4/18/2008
GC2DBE, Ancient Lake, Chuck Fackleman & Mark Robinette, 1/23/2001, 3/12/2006
GC34E, Power Lady, Kevin & The Hobach's, 2/24/2001, 11/5/2005
GC3EF, NovaNikki, NovaNikki, 3/4/2001, 3/18/2006
GC772, OSCEOLA, Bear Den, 4/21/2001, 7/11/2006
GC950, Bear Den #2 Lake County, Frank and Peggy, 5/12/2001, 7/13/2009
GCBC3, River Damm Site, Chet, 6/9/2001, 7/16/2007
GCCE1, 2 Bridges Cache, Team CoyChev, 6/18/2001, 7/11/2005
GCEB2, The view of an Honest Man, wv-explorers, 7/1/2001, 4/11/2009
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Re: Oldest Cache That You Found...Active or Archive

Post by GizmoGuy411 »

Stumpy75 wrote:...
CACHE, NAME, OWNER, PLACED, I FOUND
GC30, Mingo, The Kansas Stasher, 5/11/2000, 11/10/2006
GC57, Geocache, Dan Rich, 9/9/2000, 4/18/2008
...
Wow! Now there are a couple of REALLY old caches!

GC30 is the 48th cache placed and GC57 is the 87th cache placed, and with such a creative name too! :)
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OnDHunt
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Re: Oldest Cache That You Found...Active or Archive

Post by OnDHunt »

This is the oldest cacher I have found......Oh wait a minute.......I thought the question was about the oldest cacher not the oldest cache!

My Bad!
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Re: Oldest Cache That You Found...Active or Archive

Post by cheechgang »

cheechgang wrote:
cheechgang wrote:Amsterdam Urban1, GC198, Jan 28, 2001

(I do not count Ancient Lake due to some arcane reasoning)
State Game Lands #109, GC184 , 9-21-2000
photo from State Game Lands
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Re: Oldest Cache That You Found...Active or Archive

Post by Stumpy75 »

GC30 is the 48th cache placed and GC57 is the 87th cache placed, and with such a creative name too!
Yes, and quite a few of the cachers in NW OH have found Mingo(GC30). Grizz, The Bearclaws, The Moops Along, Elanor, Istrum2 and Journeyman, to name a few. It's the oldest active cache.

With Geocache(GC57), Jimmy System was there about a month before I was.

Small world!
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Re: Oldest Cache That You Found...Active or Archive

Post by Handyman-N-Fam »

Ours is also State Game Lands #109. We found it about 3 weeks before Cheech. Does that mean he got Cheech Honors for NWOGEO members on that cache for the month?
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Re: Oldest Cache That You Found...Active or Archive

Post by Stumpy75 »

I tried to find State Game Lands #109 yesterday, but 3" of rain the night before changed things a bit. That nice road in Cheech's pic was under water, as was the parking area. Next time I guess....
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Re: Oldest Cache That You Found...Active or Archive

Post by Handyman-N-Fam »

This is for GizmoGuy. This might be a dumb question, but how do you know the actual number that the geocache was placed? You said Ancient Lake was the 1007th cache. I would assume State Game Lands #109 (GC184) would be the 184th cache placed, but that isn't correct...Right?
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Re: Oldest Cache That You Found...Active or Archive

Post by Mighty_Mo »

Originally GC used a base 16 or HEX numbering system there Nova Niki GC3EF would have been number 1007. GC184 would then be number 388.

My question for GG is at what point did GC go to the current base 36 system?
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Re: Oldest Cache That You Found...Active or Archive

Post by GizmoGuy411 »

Handyman-N-Fam wrote:This is for GizmoGuy. This might be a dumb question, but how do you know the actual number that the geocache was placed? You said Ancient Lake was the 1007th cache. I would assume State Game Lands #109 (GC184) would be the 184th cache placed, but that isn't correct...Right?
No, not a dumb question at all!

Actually I stated that my cache "NovaNikki" was the 1007th cache, and that "Ancient Lake" was the 11,710th cache.

As Mighty_Mo stated, the original GC code (formally called the geocache Waypoint) was the hexadecimal equivalent of the sequential decimal number assigned when the cache page was created. I'll answer his question about the "new" method in another message, as it is a bit more complicated.

To answer your question as to how I know the number, there are a couple of methods. In a document that I have created to better understand the inner workings of geocaching.com, I describe them. Here is a snippet.
- Decimal geocache id number (id=):
USAGE EXAMPLE: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/cache_details.aspx?id=67

1) Go to a geocache page. RIGHT click on the "log your visit", within the
"Navigation" box and choose Properties. The number at the end of the URL Address is the cache's decimal id number. Cache owners may also find this number in other buttons in the "Naviagation" box..
DISPLAY EXAMPLE: http://www.geocaching.com/seek/log.aspx?ID=67
Therefore GC184 was the 388th cache created as Mighty_Mo correctly stated.

Ok.. that was the easy one to answer.... I think I may need to sleep before I reply to Might_Mo!

Visit my site at http://GizmoGuy411.com if you care to see the entire "Geocaching hints and shortcuts" document.
Last edited by GizmoGuy411 on Thu 2009-10-01, 06:42:38, edited 5 times in total.
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Re: Oldest Cache That You Found...Active or Archive

Post by GizmoGuy411 »

Mighty_Mo wrote:Originally GC used a base 16 or HEX numbering system there Nova Niki GC3EF would have been number 1007. GC184 would then be number 388.

My question for GG is at what point did GC go to the current base 36 system?
Three years ago I posted this at GroundSpeak:
Here is an Excel formula you can use to convert to and from the waypoint name and the cache id number.

First add this 31 character sting to the cell at position A4:
0123456789ABCDEFGHJKMNPQRTVWXYZ

Add this text to cell A8: Input Cache ID Number
Add this text to cell B8: Input Waypoint Name Suffix
Add this text to cell C8: ID Result
Add this test to cell C8: WP Result GC Code

Add this formula to cell C10:
=IF($B10<"G000",(FIND(MID($B10,1,1),$A$4,1)-1)*16^3+(FIND(MID($B10,2,1),$A$4,1)-1)*16^2+(FIND(MID($B10,3,1),$A$4,1)-1)*16^1+(FIND(MID($B10,4,1),$A$4,1)-1),((FIND(MID($B10,1,1),$A$4,1)-1)-16)*31^3+(FIND(MID($B10,2,1),$A$4,1)-1)*31^2+(FIND(MID($B10,3,1),$A$4,1)-1)*31^1+(FIND(MID($B10,4,1),$A$4,1)-1)+65536)

Add this forumla to cell D10:
=IF($B10<"G000",MID($A$4,MOD(INT($A10/16^3),16)+1,1)&MID($A$4,MOD(INT($A10/16^2),16)+1,1)&MID($A$4,MOD(INT($A10/16^1),16)+1,1)&MID($A$4,MOD(INT($A10/16^0),16)+1,1),MID(($A$4),MOD(INT(($A10-65536)/31^3),31)+16+1,1)&MID(($A$4),MOD(INT(($A10-65536)/31^2),31)+1,1)&MID(($A$4),MOD(INT(($A10-65536)/31^1),31)+1,1)&MID(($A$4),MOD(INT(($A10-65536)/31^0),31)+1,1))


This should convert correctly between the ID and the WP GC Code for the old Hexadecial WP GC Code naming system and the current offset Base 31 system.

You must input WP GC Code letters in CAPITALS ONLY, as I did not provide for case conversion.


Note that the orginal Hexidecimal naming system used the number symbols 0-9 and the letter symbols A-F.
The current system still uses the Hexidecimal system up to waypoint "GCFFFF", then starting with "GCG000" it cleverly switches to an offset of a Base 31 numbering system using the number symbols 0-9 and the letters symbols A-Z, with the letters "ILOSU" omitted to obviously avoid confusion with the allowed symbols, "105V".
Just think, "I Love OSU" to remember them.

It was pretty clever of Jeremy to invent this way of expanding the naming range without disrupting the original naming convention! Since "GC0000" never seemed to exist, the range changed from a limit of 65535 to 514200.

Once I see how the "NEW" system will work I'll modify the Excel formulas.

I am curious if the old waypoints will still be represented as "GCxxxx" or as "GC0xxxx". (This was answered with the obvious observation that existing waypoints exist with less than six characters, therefore old waypoints should remain the same.)

It may also be nice if the website added an option to strip the "GC" from the waypoint names for those downloading from the website to GPS units with only 6 waypoint character positions.

My quick calculations today, show about 483 waypoint names were used per day since the beginning of the year. If that rate remains steady, we should see "GC10000" at about mid January 2007! My hunch is it will happen a lot sooner.

Maybe someone will offer a prize to whoever snags that pivital Waypoint name!

(Please don't flame me here if my quick calculations are off, just be sure to let me know if they are!)
First notice that the new numbering system is actually an offset of base 31, as several characters are omitted, and therefore not base 36 as one might first assume.

To know the true conversion date, we would have to ask geocaching.com when they came with this new numbering scheme.

However we can still determine when the first cache that used the new method.

The last cache to use the plain old hexadecimal code of GCFFFF was "Like A Tornado Hit It " a cache by mtn-man, Hidden: 4/22/2003.

The next cache created using the new offset base 31 system was GCG001, Wuzzle Wozzle a cache by Unfurl, Hidden: 4/22/2003.

Notice that GC code GCG000 was reserved and never used.
Last edited by GizmoGuy411 on Thu 2009-10-01, 15:59:46, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Oldest Cache That You Found...Active or Archive

Post by Handyman-N-Fam »

So, what will be the GC number of the one millionth geocache? That one is coming up quickly!
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Re: Oldest Cache That You Found...Active or Archive

Post by cheechgang »

Handyman-N-Fam wrote:So, what will be the GC number of the one millionth geocache? That one is coming up quickly!
This morning the front page of gc.com states there are 912,389 active caches worldwide. Considering the fact that there are MANY MANY archived caches I would venture to say that # one milliion was placed a while ago.

I hesitate to use the word "placed"; however, because there are many number that are assigned that are never actually used.

Identifying the one millionth cache placed is like nailing jello to a wall. Although figuring out the one millionth GC number assigned would be possible with assistance from TPTB.
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