Not all games cost money, but some games involve money. www.wheresgeorge.com
Aug 01 '01
The Bottom Line There's a lot of weird game-type activities on the internet that can be educational. www.wheresgeorge.com is but one of them.
As a young lad, my mother must have known I was going to be a little 'bookish' when I grew up, so she helped foster and encourage my interest in stamps and coins. OK, there, I said it. Listen to this one: I'm a 30.5 year old man, and I have a coin collection! I'm a numismatic nerd, and I'm proud of it!
But hey, living on a farm, with virtually no kids my age in the vicinity, and a both parents being reclusive teachers, there were a lot of opportunities for introverted activities. And it's not all bad, either. I remember the alien awe I felt the first time I saw an "Indian Head Penny" or a "Buffalo Nickel". And those very worn "Mercury Dimes" looked so fake. The following "game" is something I've been playing with lately. It's probably a good thing that the internet wasn't around when I was a kid...I would have hounded my parents for every bill that walked through the door to enter in.
For adults, or adults with children, this can be a neat and educational thing to play with: www.wheresgeorge.com
Now that I've been on www.wheresgeorge.com for over a year, and more importantly, now that I've broken the 1500 nerddom mark, I'm going to share my numismatic glory with you all. And as of this moment, there are only 1395 people who have entered more bills and gotten more hits (according to some arcane formula) than I have on www.wheresgeorge.com.
The Concept
Wouldn't it be neat to find out where your money has been and where it's going to next?
Well, the legal bit about marking money isn't "writing on bills is illegal" but "defacing bills so they can't be recirculated or trying to counterfeit is illegal". So www.wheresgeorge.com started up to allow people to enter in bills, and by writing or stamping the URL and maybe a message about the URL, you can get other people to enter in your money later.
Like most people, I came across Where's George by receiving a couple bills that someone else had stamped. So, I went to the homepage, entered in the bills, saw they both came from some high school boy's daddy who was scared of Y2K, and was hooked.
Use
Pop on over to www.wheresgeorge.com.
Select the bill denomination. ($1 to $100)
Select the year.
Type in the serial number from the front of the bill.
Put in some commentary about the bill, it's condition, where you got it, etc. (I also use this box to keep track of what I do to the bills, so I could sorta see what was more effective at getting responses.)
If you really want to play with Where's George, you need to set up an account on Where's George. This is easy, just click on "Register!"
Enter your name, email, a password, and select a couple options boxes and you're set. Where's George proudly displays "The Where's George? staff respects your total privacy. We will NOT sell or distribute your email address or personal information to anyone." with a link for more info on the registration page. The information at that page is pretty simple: "The staff at Where's George? and Where's Willy? respects your total and complete privacy. We will NOT sell or distribute your email address or any other personal information to anyone, anytime, anywhere. It will be used solely to notify you of hits on your bills and/or exciting new changes and events at Where's George? and/or Where's Willy? ."
It's just about tracking your bills.
(Where's Willy? is the Canadian bill version.)
Use II
After entering in a bill, you put the URL on the bill somehow. You can just write the URL, or go to more lengths, with "Track this bill", "See where this bill has been, track where it goes next at www.wheresgeorge.com", circle the serial number, use high-lighter, etc. Just don't render it unfit for circulation.
Legality
Where's Geroge? tells us:
Q: Is it legal to write on currency?
A: Where's George? does not encourage the defacement of U.S. Currency. The law defines "illegal" defacement as defacement that renders bills unfit to be re-issued. For the legal details from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing."
This also has a link to http://www.bep.treas.gov/document.cfm/18/104 Which says:
"Defacement of Currency
Defacement of currency is a violation of Title 18, Section 333 of the United States Code. Under this provision, currency defacement is generally defined as follows: Whoever mutilates, cuts, disfigures, perforates, unites or cements together, or does any other thing to any bank bill, draft, note, or other evidence of debt issued by any national banking association, Federal Reserve Bank, or Federal Reserve System, with intent to render such item(s) unfit to be reissued, shall be fined not more than $100 or imprisoned not more than six months, or both.
Defacement of currency in such a way that it is made unfit for circulation comes under the jurisdiction of the United States Secret Service. Their address is: United States Secret Service, 1800 G Street, N. W., Washington, DC 20223.
"
The Secret Service has asked Where's George to stop selling stamps to mark your bills, but has not closed down the site, told them to tell people not to do it, etc. etc. Where's George? even has links to places where you can buy your own stamps to mark your bills, they just were asked (!) to stop selling the stamps.
Use III
So, now that you've registered and entered your bills, and marked them in a way that doesn't make them unable to be recirculated, what do you do?
You wait.
It depends on how you mark bills (if you write, write well, and use a high-lighter to make it more visible), how many you mark, etc. Where's George? has a page to keep track of Your Bills, which shows breakdown by month entered, by federal reserve bank, by denomination, by series (year), and by the zip code you entered bills. From this, I can tell you that none of the first 21 bills I entered from 4/2000 to 7/2000 have ever been re-entered into the system. Only 1 of the 23 bills I entered in 8/2000 have been re-entered. But 12 of the 74 bills I entered in 11/2000 have hits, so it's not that bad.
My experience so far is that most bills are re-entered a couple months after being entered, and only about 10% of the bills will get reentered. So go crazy at the beginning and forget about it til you start getting email that your bill has been reentered.
Here's an example of one of my bills:
One Dollar Bill, Serial# D9434---8M, Series: 1995
Jun-15-01 05:30 PM
Shawnee Mission, KS 44 Days, 19 Hrs, 27 Mins (213 Miles 0.20 MPH)
User's Note: Liquor store next to oklahoma Joe's in Westwood Ks 6-15-2001
May-01-01 10:03 PM
Ames, IA 170 Days, 4 Hrs, 22 Mins (764 Miles 0.19 MPH)
User's Note: This bill was given to me as change in a Long John Silver's in Ames, Iowa. It's still in really good condition (AKA still vending machine friendly), and has the serial number circled.
Nov-12-00 04:40 PM
Decatur, GA Initial Entry
User's Note: Excellent condition. Added URL, circled the SN in blue, and wrote "Where has this bill been? Where is it going next?"
Nerd Status
Since 4/2000, I've entered 581 bills worth $4,151. 58 of those bills have been re-entered once, 4 of those have been entered twice. I've found 3 of other people's bills, but only the first two were actually entered into the system (the third one i recently found, and someone either typed the serial number/series wrong, or they just didn't quite 'get it'). So, my hit rate is currently 9.98% (the highest it's ever been...I think buying that red ink stamper has helped). And Where's George? even tells me that there are only 1396 people who are bigger nerds than I according to the George Score (based on bills entered and hits received).
George says: "We now have 797,005 users who have entered 11,114,871 bills, totalling $66,133,082 worth of U.S. currency!"
Conclusion
This is a neato sort of activity-site. It probably doesn't have a lot of interest to most non-obsessive-compulsive types, but it is a pretty cool horizon opening thing to play with and may be especially rewarding for children (I remember how much fun I has scratching the word "God" off all my change when I became an atheist in 5th grade)). The only problem with the activity is that it takes a bit of patience (which may be a good lesson for children!) and obsessiveness.
And Where's George? will also tell you what that * in the Serial Number on some bills means.
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Epinions.com ID:
roymeo
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Location: SF, CA
Reviews written: 79
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About Me:
pseudo-intellectual altie-poser taken to self-deprecation
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