Personal geocoins are a personal signature item bearing the geocacher's handle and personal design, similar to a heraldic device. Geocoins are often minted by caching organizations and as fund-raisers for geocaching events.

They may be placed in geocaches to be found by others and kept as trophies, moved from cache to cache like a Travel Bug, traded, given to other cachers like a calling card, or merely sold and collected.

Trackable Geocaching.com geocoins are imprinted with unique codes and tracked via the geocaching.com website. An icon, sometimes unique, is shown on the geocaching website beside a cache the geocoin is in or the inventory of any cacher holding one. Icons will also remain in the inventory of cachers who log the 'discovery' of a geocoin's number without physically removing it from a cache. Icon collecting is an associated hobby. Many people bring geocoins with unique icons to geocaching events so that others may see the coins and use the tracking number to collect the icons online.

Other websites for trackable coins include the 2005 Canadian geocoin , Utah geocoin and Oregon State coin, and sigitem.com.

History of Geocaching.com trackable geocoins

• September 30, 2001 The first trackable geocoin released was the Moun10Bike Version 1 Geocoin #002. The Moun10Bike Version 1 Geocoins are the most sought after geocoins in existence. They are all displayed on geocaching.com as owned by Moun10Bike however the coin may still be listed for sale in defiance of this on eBay fetching prices in the thousands of USD. When he finds a sale of this coin on eBay he will have the coin locked so it is no longer trackable.

• 2003 The first USAGeocoin is released for sale making it one of the first Geocoins that one can buy, release, and track online without minting an exclusive personal design. The proposed 2002 Design was never made. 

• 2005 Geocaching.com permits any Geocaching user to purchase tracking numbers for approved designs fueling a sudden surge in number of coins. Minimum purchase set at 1000 tracking numbers.

• Fall 2006 Groundspeak reduces the minimum purchase of tracking numbers to 250 and the min. required to receive a unique icon, reducing the total cost of creating a trackable geocoin (with icon) and fueling a 'geocoin craze' with hundreds of new personal, group and increasingly purely commercial designs minted.

• February 17, 2007 The First Annual Geocoinfest was held in Temecula, CA. This event brought hundreds of Geocoin Collectors together with many exclusive coins being given away or traded.