I am convinced that if there is something to celebrate there is a coin, medal, or token to collect in its honor.
Today, my challenge is to determine if there is something numismatically available to collect for Leap Day, that once every four years celebration of the 29th of February.
For today’s collecting adventure we venture into the world of geocaching. For those not familiar with geocaching, it is an adventure activity in which the participants use the global positioning system (GPS) to navigate to find small containers with treasures. The small containers are called a “geocache” or “cache.” These geocaches contains a logbook that is signed with by the finder with a code name and placed back where it was found.
Almost anything can be included in the geocache for a prize. One such prize is a geocoin. Similar to a challenge coin, a geocoin is a specially designed medal that is the prize for finding the geocache. There is a worldwide community of geocache enthusiasts that you can find at geocaching.com.
For one of the meeting at my coin club, two of our young numismatists taught some of us old folks about geocaching and showed off some of the geocoins they have found or collected from various sources. Some of the designs were phenomenal. There was one geocoin made for a gathering of Maryland enthusiasts that was so well done that I have been looking to buy one since.
Without the constraint of rules, laws, and congress, some have created quite a number of interesting geocoins to celebrate the leap year. To celebrate Leap Day and the geocaching community for the inspiration, here are some of the interesting geocoins I have found on my online search.