Fun With Money - Where's George?
Many coin collectors also collect banknotes. After all, banknotes are another form of money, so coins and bills go hand-in-hand. Since I've had a few readers request that I cover some currency topics, I thought it would be fun to start with a recreational Web site devoted to paper money.
One of my favorite banknote-related Web sites is Where's George? This site was set up to track the travels of dollar bills. To participate, you write or rubber-stamp a little notice on the bill, telling anybody into whose possession it comes that they can track the bill on WheresGeorge.com. When visitors arrive, they are told to enter the serial number of the bill, and the site checks to see if the bill has been submitted before. If so, the site provides a listing of the "hits" the bill has enjoyed.
For example, I received an email notification last night that one of my dollar bills had been found in South Milwaukee, Wisconsin by a participant named Carol. The tracking report for the bill shows that it traveled 71 miles in 1 year, 352 days, 7 hours, and 51 minutes since the time I entered it. Of course, the bill might have gone around the world in that time, and Carol just happened to be the first participant to log it back in, but it's more likely that the bill sat somewhere for most of that time before finally being spent.
Carol is a hard-core Where's George participant. She has entered at least 20,893 bills into the system (compared to my 40.) She's had hits from every state in the union except Vermont! However, Carol's impressive score is dwarfed by some of the leaders on the top 10 users list. A participant calling himself Wattsburg Gary has entered more than 1,099,600 banknotes! Everyone on the top 10 has entered well over 100,000 bills!
If you'd like to play the currency tracking game, but live outside the U.S., Where's George has a list of currency tracking sites around the world that have been inspired by this clever original. Too bad there's no easy way to do this with coins!
Comments
I find it interesting as a collector, you would write an article promoting the defacing of our currency coinage. I for one am glad there isn’t an easy way to start doing this to coins. I’d be so disappointed to find a rare coin or note and have something stamped on or carved into it. Please rethink your position on this subject.
Harold
If you go to Where’s George and view the report by series, you can see there there’s been about 1,500 1957,1957A & 1957B series bills entered into the system. I believe that these were the last series of the Silver Certificates and are collectors items. This makes me sick that they were ruined by stamping a wheresgeorge.com on them.
I asked wheresgeorge.com about their feelings about marking Silver Certificates and this was their response:
From what I’ve been told by many collectors, is that the silver certificates aren’t really that “collectible” unless they are in near un-circulated condition. I’m sure that most of them entered on this site more than 8 years ago were not in great condition, and therefore really not collectible.
I would like to thank everyone who has taken the time to make me aware of your concerns about the Where’s George Web site. It really should have occurred to me that banknote collectors would be understandably annoyed about a Web site that encourages people to deface their bills! I strive to be respectful of all legitimate numismatic collectibles in the content that I publish, and I acknowledge the fact that this Where’s George blog post might have missed the mark a little bit.
Susan Headley
About.com Guide to Coins