Confucius Geocoin, The Journey

This coin is brought to you by the German geocacher NoPodi, who took advantage of our resale program to convey this wonderful message. Here is what his research has discovered:

"The journey is the reward." is a proverb often associated with Confucius. During my research about this saying I discovered that when Chinese talk about this saying, they think it’s an American, respectively Western Europe saying. In fact, the original saying by Confucius is "Chi Yu Tao." (if I'm correct) which you could interpret as "The perceptiveness/attention/... is in the road/way/being/journey/...."

When I first thought about this proverb - we have a very similar one in German - I immediately thought about geocaching and vice-versa. For me, the journey is the one thing I'm most interested in; The exploring of the sight; The riddles. Spotting the cache and logging is just the final goal. Talking to the community, it's sometimes about the lifestyle. But with the things you have to do to get this, it is the reward of growing on the path - that’s what’s fascinating to me.

So I started to design this first coin. At first I thought about a multi-colored version, but in the end I choose this very simple one.

The front of this polished nickel version represents the “river” (with the reflection of the sun). The details on the moon are very important for me. It gives the design the depth and the coin a special feeling - I think. On the backside is the dharma wheel (originally from India) which found its way into the Daoist world view and represents the eight elements, cardinal points, and many more.

A polished gold version was minted as a special, limited edition. It is not for sale through our website.

◾Measures 1.75" diameter.

◾Polished nickel finish.

◾Imitation hard enamel color.

◾Trackable on Geocaching.com.

◾An icon unique to this coin will show on your profile when you log a find.