Palo Alto Geocoin
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Owner:
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Little Hiawatha
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Released:
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Thursday, October 17, 2013
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Origin:
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California, United States
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Recently Spotted:
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Unknown Location
This is not collectible.
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This coin wants to be returned to its cache in Palo Alto California. 
The Sextant Geocoin™ is a commemoration to the sextant. The octant and sextant replaced most of the earlier navigation tools in the late 1700s such as the back staff, mariner's astrolabe, and quadrant. The octant is 1/8 of a circle and a sextant is 1/6 of a circle. The sextant allowed for more range in the degree scale over the octant.
The biggest improvement the sextant made over all other sighting tools (except the octant) is its double reflecting mirrors which eliminated the ocular parallax other tools caused. It also allowed for greater accuracy by having finer degree adjustments.
The sextant design is so universal and accurate that it is still used on ships today as a backup instrument to electrical navigation devices. Even aircraft used these as backups if their avionic systems failed.
The Sextant Geocoin™ is trackable on Geocaching.com and has its own icon. It was made in both antique silver and antique bronze with each finish having a second polished plating on the sextant. The antique bronze is the only finish open for public sales. There is also text going around the edge of the coin. A unique feature about this coin is the stars around the sextant glow in the dark.
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