What is Where’s George?

Where's George? stamped bill

I want to tell you about an addiction I have.  No, not the (insert addiction here) Anonymous kind.  And yes, in addition to my blogging, although unlike my fiancee, I think of Capsun’s Corner as my hobby.  One thing in my life that I must compulsively do is feed my addiction to Where’s George?®.

It’s not a site devoted to President Bush; instead the reference is to George Washington, whose portrait adorns U.S. $1 bills.  In short, Where’s George?® is a currency tracking program. It’s a FREE website that allows users to track the natural flow of U.S. currency (from $1 bills to $100 bills).  If you have ever wondered where the money in your wallet came from or where it goes after you spend it, then this is the place for you.  When registering a bill, users must enter the denomination ($1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50, or $100), series (year the bill was printed), serial number (printed in green on all bills), and ZIP code (to track the bill to/from its current location).

So how do you know if your bill is part of the project? Users are supposed to mark the bill with the website, www.wheresgeorge.com, so that others who notice it can enter the bill, at which point a “hit” is registered.  To encourage you to do this, they even give you a George Score that uses a complicated formula including how many bills you have entered and how many hits you have, but accounts for other factors.

Some users just write on the bill, but I think most of the serious Where’s Georgers use a stamp, like I do.  Having done this for several years now, I’ve even experimented with different colors of stamps.  For example, my black stamp had a fairly low hit rate.  On the other hand, a red stamp gets a much higher hit rate, probably because it’s easier to see.  But then that leads to cashiers asking you about it more often.  It’s OK, I’m more than happy to explain that it’s a pretty neat project.  But, I’ve finally settled on a blue stamp, which I think is noticeable enough, without being too noticeable.

Here are my stats as of December 31, 2008:

But is it legal? Don’t worry, that’s the question I get most often about this.  While I am not an attorney, here’s what the Bureau of Engraving and Printing has to say:

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 under this title 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.

As you can see, “intent” is a big part of making it illegal.  My fellow Where’s Georgers and I have no intent to make the bill unfit for circulation.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  Only by putting it back into circulation and getting it into others’s hands can we increase our chances that someone else will log the bill and we will increase our George Scores.

So if you see me trying to trade bills with you, or give you coins for a dollar bill, now you know why.  I need to increase my Where’s George?® score!  And you are one of my many enablers.   Hey, even my mom helps me with this project.

Mahalo!

Tagged as: currency, currency tracking, tracking, where's george