November 13, 1999
Web posted at: 6:19 PM EST (2319 GMT)

PITTSBURGH (AP) -- If you find yourself wondering where the heck your money went, now there's a way to find out.

An Internet site called "www.wheresgeorge.com" -- in honor of the president whose likeness graces the $1 bill -- tracks U.S. currency as it changes hands from city to city.

Bills marked with "www.wheresgeorge.com" have been through Ryan's Produce in Albany, N.Y., and the tax collector's office in Coffey County, Kan. A marked $100 bill bought a nail gun in Lorton, Va., and at last report was 20 miles away in Sterling, Va.

"I didn't think it would be as addicting as some people are finding it," site creator Hank Eskin said Friday. "It's something out there on the Internet that's not porn, and it's not selling anything. It's pure fun. I think people appreciate that."

The record starts when someone enters the serial number of a bill at www.wheresgeorge.com and marks the bill with the Web site address. About 3.5 percent of them will be logged again by someone else as they change hands, Eskin said.

Someone with the nickname "Adam" claims to have entered 65,051 bills into the site and has heard about 4,955 of them -- a success rate of 7.6 percent.

"The ones ($1 bills) seem to get most of the hits," said Colleen Marsala, who has marked and logged about 1,300 bills in her spare time.

"I've seen mine spent in bars, fast-food places," she said. "I read where one was used to pay for a hooker."

The hits are real, Eskin said. Three digits of the bill's serial number are masked by the site to prevent bogus entries.

Marsala, who lives in suburban Pittsburgh, said she has been logging bills since August and has read of their travels as far as California. Money has fascinated her since childhood when she stamped money with a cartoon horse to see if she would get it back. She said she got one bill back at a movie theater.

As of Saturday, the Where's George Web site claimed 68,392 people had entered 1,025,076 bills, totalling $6,005,796.

Eskin pays for the site by selling advertisements and rubber stamps with the Internet address on them. The 34-year-old electronic commerce consultant from Boston said he started Where's George last year to practice his Web page design.

Some of the $1 bills have been logged at six different places since the site went up in December, Eskin said.

"I've actually been surprised at how slow money travels. It could go just three miles in two months," he said.

Defacing U.S. currency is a crime, but federal law defines "defacing" as altering a bill so much that it cannot be used.

Edward Sheehan, a spokesman for the U.S. Treasury Department's Bureau of Engraving and Printing, said that while it is legal to write on U.S. currency, "we discourage people from doing that. It is best to have the notes pristine."

Copyright 1999 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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