Years ago, at the age of about 10 years old, I used a typewriter to type "If you receive this bill please write to me at..." around the edges of a one dollar bill.
I received a photocopy of that dollar about six months later mailed from the other side of the country.
Now I can relive a part of my formative years via the Internet and the Where's George? web site...
--Marc
July 3, 2003 @ 12:00 PM
So, What's it All About?
For me, it's about "reaching out." I guess my attraction to the Where's Geroge phenomenon is much the same outward reach that compelled me when I was 9 years old to put a message into a bottle and drop it into the ocean at Atlantic City. And inspired me for a 6th grade science project to attach postcards to helium baloons to research the prevailing winds (it was really to see from where the cards would come back!). And my response to a comic book article to have a Pen Pal in the Philippines when I was in Junior High School. I think my youthful interest in CB Radio, and then the discovery that Ham Radio people routinely sent QSL Postcards back to people they spoke to across the country or around the world is another side of this same coin.
The ability nowadays to use a computer to record and track the paths of paper currency is just one latest outlet for my desire to extend the realm of my interests.
The Zero Dollar Bill:
This is one bill you can really spend thoughtlessly!
Front: "Zero Mostel" Back: "Nobody's Home" Perfect for Cheap Tippers! No More Risk at Poker Games! Never Need to Break one for Change!
These bills are available in actual bill sized pads with your own "Tag Line" on the back. Contact me for more information.
Email Me
Profile Visitors:
How It's Going So Far:
1st International Hits:
Hit #466
Hit #535
Hit #577
Hit #601
Hit #881
Hit #916
Hit #1066
Hit #1632
Brief Chronology:
June 17, 2003 - I read an article about the "Where's George?" web site, looked around, registered, and entered one bill - hand writing the web site address on the edge.
(I guess I just wasn't that interested)
July 9, 2003 - Found a "Wild George" with a simple "www.wheresgeorge.com" stamp on both sides, remembered what it was and brought it home to revisit the site.
July 10, 2003 - Entered that "Wild George" and Entered two more $1 bills by hand printing a "www.wheresgeorge.com" on the border of both sides.
(The addiction begins)
July 10, 2003 - Spent both of those marked $1 bills on my way to a Wall Street client.
(Okay, no problem here)
July 10, 2003 - Checked my email at home later and found a hit on one bill about an hour after I spent it.
(Surprise!)
July 11, 2003 - Entered four more bills of varying denominations.
(Hmmm... Using big words like "denomination" now...)
July 11, 2003 - Located the "Where's George?" ink stamps at Stamp-Connection.com, thought about it for less than three minutes, then ordered the small circular one that surrounds the Federal Reserve Seal.
(This seemed the classiest, the one that would be most noticed, and it had to be in Red, of course. Is this a sign of trouble?)
July 13, 2003 - I've been hand printing the markings on a couple of dozen bills over the past three days while I await the interminable time it seems to be taking for my ink stamp to arrive... [grin]
(Okay, now I'm probably hooked.)
July 13, 2003 - I expect to enter that "quiet period" now where nothing much happens as far as hits are concerned, and I'll just tirelessly hand mark more and more bills - Enter, Mark and Spend.
(Learned that there are 100 bills in a strap.)
July 14, 2003 - Stay tuned for the next episode, hopefully in just a few days, when "The Ink Stamp Arrives!" (I'm already imagining the pleasure of not having to hand mark bills anymore!)
July 16, 2003 - The stamp arrived, so now my Georging can continue with ease!
My Simple Round Stamp
July 22, 2003 - Stamped a strap of singles to take on vacation, but can't find any banks in New York that have any $2 bills!
(Will this setback affect my psyche? You bet!)
July 23, 2003 - The local bank near my in-laws' home had about 20 $2 bills they were happy to sell me!
(Okay, psychotic episode avoided.)
August 11, 2003 - I realized that a place where Georgers could post their own interesting Bill Entries and view other's Bill Entries would be a fun and useful project. I registered the domain name billreport.com, designed "The Bill Report Vault" web site, and hoodwinked my friend and oft-collaborator Willie to create some crack php code for a "Self-Service" posting site.
(Willie loves an interesting challenge. But he's catching on to my sneaky methods...)
The Bill Report Vault
August 13, 2003 - I posted the first Bill Report on the new site and made some mentions in the Where's George Main Forum to try to generate some interest.
(As a gesture to the "importance" of it all [grin], my first post was what might be the Very First WG Dollar Bill, entered by Hank back in 1998)
August 14, 2003 - In recognition of his willingness to provide his programming genius for free, I presented to Willie an "Honorary Where's George Registration," I entered his Very First Wild George for him, and presented that crisp new George to him with my thanks. He later said he spent it for a bus ride when he couldn't break a twenty. Now he's looking forward for a hit on that bill...
(We all know how the nature of Georging dampens that "newbie spirit" at the beginning, don't we... Wink, wink.)
August 15, 2003 - After I inadvertantly overwrote a portion of Willie's code with my cosmetic revisions, I had to convince him to redo about an hour's worth of programming. I mailed him payment, a crisp 1976 series $2 Bill ready for him to do with as he wants.
(Will he enter it himself, and actually Become a Georger? Time will tell...)
August 23, 2003 - Over the past week or so I've been adding Categories that Georgers have suggested, and I've been watching as the site begins to grow with new bill entries.
(The Bill Report Vault now proudly stands in Slowpoke's "User Links" page where plenty of other Georgers will see it and visit.)
September 9, 2003 - In honor of my upcoming 1000th Entered Bill, I picked up my first strap of Brand New $1 bills from the bank. The last bill, ending in "00" fittingly became Bill Number 1000.
(And I ordered an Oil-Based stamp to try a "dual stamping" method on these new bills. My 5% Hit Rate could use a boost and I'm betting new bills and a modified stamp technique will help. Time will tell.)
September 15, 2003 - I've been using the new one-line "www.WheresGeorge.com" on the edges of the bills I've marked this week, and picked up a 2nd strap of uncirculated singles. It looks like that's helping raise my hit rate to just over 5%.
(I think using more uncirculated singles will work better for me than just entering any old bills, so I'll note my hit rate progress in an upcoming chronology entry. This week The Bill Report Vault received it's 200th post!)
October 7, 2003 - I created a Small Animated Image to include in my Bill Entries, mainly as an ad for the Bill Report Vault. It looks good, and the code uses up quite a portion of the allotment of 254 characters, but I think I'll stick with it for awhile and mull over it.
(I like changing the Bill Entry for each new Strap, but it does get to be a little time consuming - although certainly not as time consuming as EMSing 100 brand new bills once or twice a week...)
October 7, 2003 - I enhanced the Animated Image, making it into a "Greetings From New York" animated postcard.
(And it uses the same amount of characters as the simpler previous one, but much more is packed into the Animated Image now! A good solution to get more of a message across with a limited amount of characters for the Bill Entry.)
November 1, 2003 - A couple of weeks ago I bought a new stamp, "Currency Tracking Project" in red, and I've settled on a clear but not too overdone way of stamping my bills. My hit rate has increased to just over 9% now. I think the new red stamp is pulling them in!
December 1, 2003 - Well, I've been entering about a strap of Brand New singles each week or so, sometimes more, sometimes less. But every so often getting a strap of already circulated bills is enticing for the better chances of unusual serial numbers. I picked up some Brand New $2 bills too - just in time for Holiday Tips and other festive spending! Holiday Bills went out to all the Neices and Nephews as well.
(Always trying to hook others onto my nifty obsession... Now I'm going after the kids!)
December 8, 2004 - Back in February I took a look at the Geocaching web site and registered. I had known about geocaches from reading about them in the WG Top Ten Bills list, and I understood what geocaching was all about, and how some WG people stashed their marked bills in caches. A friend received a GPS device as a gift, and since he knew I was already interested, we went together on a cache hunt through New York's Central Park. Needless to say, I was hooked, and promptly went out a purchased a GPS and started geocaching on my own. Discovering the active nature of that hobby did give me some things to think about concerning my time spent stamping bills, and whether I was really getting useful "life feedback" or whatever. In other words, "Was I wasting too much time on this endless pursuit?" I decided to cut the amount of time that I spent actually dealing with the mechanics of tracking bills, and the "payback" of getting the hits, which sometimes seemed lacking in "punch" anymore. I decided to order a stamp that would speed things up.
January 1, 2005 - I ordered a new stamp to start out the New Year. It's the curved "Dave Thomas" style, but I used my own phrase, "You can track this bill at www.WheresGeorge.com" which seems to help people understand what they should do, and why. Stamping my bills with 4 different stamps had gotten to be much more of a time-sink, so now I have a single stamp, and I've observed it's quite noticable (the red stamping is often read by store clerks as I hand them bills). I've also started marking only brand new straps from the bank. I used to enjoy the sorting of straps of used bills, and the chance of finding a wild, but entering a sequential strap takes only 10 minutes, instead of much longer to enter serial numbers individually. I enter and stamp about 100 to 200 bills each week with the new "high-speed" stamp method, with little change in my daily hit rate. And I've had plenty of time for Geocaching - so if you haven't looked into that, perhaps you'll find it as interesting as I have! www.Geocaching.com is where you can find more info. One of my favorites is the Sundial Cache (take a look at all the Sundial photos), and the Lakeside View Cache is one that I maintain myself in Central Park.
January 1, 2006 - I'm now stamping mostly $5 bills, but when the new style $10s start appearing I'll be switching mainly to those. I don't have to invest as much time into the process, and I'm still seeing at least a hit or more each day. I'm also getting many more "sleeper" hits from bills that have not surfaced for over a year or two (or more). I have to admit that I enjoy Georging as much as I always have, but I don't have to deal with that "love/hate" relationship - the "hate" part being the time I had to spend stamping $1 bills. I am very pleased that I can now enjoy the obsession of stamping bills, but the sheer numbers I "had" to stamp previously has now been reduced to about 100 to 200 bills per month, and I'm still circulating the same amount of dollar value.
November 16, 2006 - Hamilton's are where it's at! I've been getting only the New Style $10s (tellers call them "tea stained") and stamping them with the rounded stamp. I only stamp about two to three hundred each month, and I'm getting the hits to keep me high in the WG standings for my state. I suppose they'll be doing the some sort of New Style $5s next, so I'll go back to them again.
January 1, 2007 - I've gone back to stamping $5 bills almost exclusively. No great news here, just that now I average about $1500 or so entered each month with enough hits to keep me satisfied - about one each day or so - and many of them come in from $1 bills entered more than one or two years ago!
May 7, 2007 - Today a hit finally came in from the great state of Montana - and that gave me my 50 State Bingo. Total time to amass all 50 states and the District of Columbia: 3 years, 324 days.
May 1, 2008 - I started requesting the new style $5 bills from my friendly bank, and I'm using a new entry: "Colorful spending habits can now be yours! As if this $5 wasn't catchy enough, I gave it some zest with a WheresGeorge stamp. It's on a quest, so send it along!"
August 11, 2008 - The new $5 bills aren't nearly as obtainable at the bank, even after several months of circulation. I've been stamping a good number of very old and fragile fives - bit hey, "Old bills never die - They just cash out!"
