Have any of you been participating in WheresGeorge? Have you ever come across a bill with a "WheresGeorge" stamp? Although it's been a few months since I've entered any, I've been doing it since 2003. The way that it works is that, when I think of it, I stamp my bills using a pre-made rubber stamp that says something like, "Track your cash. Register this bill with www.wheresgeorge.com." Alternatively, this can simply be written on the bill, or simply registered and sent out unmarked, although it is rare that an unmarked bill will be re-registered by anyone. The hope is that someone will notice the message on the bill, connect to the WheresGeorge website, and re-register the bill, giving me a hit. I am then notified that there has been a hit on one of my bills, and I can go into the site and see how far it had traveled. One $20 bill that I had deposited into a bank in Millinocket, Maine was won in a contest at a fair in Florida one week later. It's always nice when the person who goes to the site also registers for an account because that's one more person registering WheresGeorge bills. All of the information about the bills that I have registered is maintained on the WheresGeorge site, so it's kind of fun to go in once in a while to see where they've gone. All sorts of statistics are maintained, including competitions between WheresGeorge users, overall and by state. Bills have hit in all sixteen of Maine's counties, all eight of Connecticut's, and in all but ten of our fifty states (57 if you're an Obama voter). Additionally, I have had hits in American Samoa, New Brunswick, Aruba, the Slovak Republic, and Turks and Caicos Islands. I have one bill with four hits, which is the most that any of the bills that I have entered has been hit. Millinocket, Maine on Feb. 12, 2006 Swampscott, Massachusetts on March 15, 2006 Westford, Massachusetts on July 22, 2006 Warwick, Rhode Island on June 10, 2008 Barre, Vermont on December 22, 2008 Interestingly, most bills that are spent in New England never leave New England. Although WheresGeorge is just for the United States, named for George Washington, who is on the face of the US $1 bill, there are similar programs for other countries. I know that WheresGeorge included a Canadian section at one time, but I am not seeing that today.
I have not heard of WheresGeorge before this post. It is a good idea to track where the bills actually go when they go from one person to another in the cycle of paying bills.
I remember the "Where's George", but it has been a really long time since I last heard about it, or even saw a dollar bill marked with the webpage. I remember logging in all of the serial numbers when I first heard about this, and even checking out some of the numbers o see if anyone else had tracked them. I think it is an interesing idea. Here is another interesting thing to do with your dollar bills that i was just reading about. Apparently, some collectors are paying a good amount for bills with interesting serial numbers, such as consecutive ones, or ones with a lot of repeats in the numbers. If you have the right one, you can sell it and have made a great return on your dollar investment. http://www.coolserialnumbers.com/default.aspx
I used to have a lot of fun with that program but do not recall if I had any results. Now I only have one dollar to my name...US dollar that is, but since we use Baht here I guess I will die with one dollar to my name!
The last time I was at a pawn shop, I saw what looked like regular bills in the case, with varying prices on them, and wondered why. Perhaps this is why...I didn't ask, because it was lunch time, and that's the busiest time for them, besides just after work, apparently. I'll have to look into this!
I recall signing up for the Where's George thing many years ago, but I haven't received any notifications in quite a while. I might need to check back into it, although I haven't seen any bills stamped with it in quite a while. I think it's interesting to see where money has been, and where it goes.
I did it years ago as well, but I haven't thought about it for a long time. Now I'm interested again. BTW, I know where George isn't: in my bank account!
I used to see them a lot more often than I have lately. In fact, it's probably been more than 6 or 7 years since I've seen one. I always checked them and it was interesting but so many people never bothered to register them, so the true track wasn't known. One time about 10 or 12 years ago, (I KNOW I'm going to hear laughter on this one!) I plugged one in to check and was shocked to find out that it was last seen in my favorite vacation spot and somehow made it back to my home town a thousand miles away. It was incredible! And then I realized the bill was still in my wallet from before vacation, and that I had registered it with George from a hotel room when I was still there. Um.... go ahead... who's going to be first?
Yeah, WheresGeorge isn't as popular as it once was, largely because all of the news stories that might be written about it have already been written, and because it's no longer a new thing. But it is still active, although I have only come across a few of them in my own change, and one of those was my wife's. Interestingly, when I entered that one in, I was immediately blocked from WheresGeorge. Contacting the guy by email, I was told that this was activated because she had registered it using the same IP number that I used when I tried to register it, so the block was to prevent someone from simply creating two accounts and cheating, since people do compete for bragging points. He reinstated but, if I find that it uses a tag that my wife has used, I look it up before trying to register it. It's fun, when your bills get hits, to see how far it has traveled. Most of mine stay in New England but every now and then, one will travel across country very fast.
I haven't seen one in quite a while. I'm sure I would have noticed. I don't deal with cash as much as I used to, but I would really like to come across more of these, because I find it interested to see where the money has been. @Mari, thanks, that's something I would do, how funny!