Do you ever wonder where that paper money in your pocket has been, or where it will go next?
A few days ago I opened my wallet to pay for something and much to my surprise there was actually real cash in there! The folding kind! This is a pretty amazing event these days now that our son is almost fifteen but my surprise was also due to one particular bill (a rather pathetic one dollar bill) being marked with highlighter at the end over which was printed “See other end.” On the other end it read “Go to www.wheresgeorge.com.”
My curiosity piqued, as soon as I got home I went to the site and found a most intriguing service – an experiment that has morphed into an obsession for many people.
Where’s George opens with the question “Do you ever wonder where that paper money in your pocket has been, or where it will go next? This is the place to find out. All you need to do is enter the denomination, series, and serial number of any U.S. dollar bill, and your current USA ZIP or Canadian Post Code in the box below. If you are from Canada, be sure to check out Where’s Willy? to track your Canadian Currency!”
I entered my bill’s details and discovered that the bill had traveled 87 Miles in 189 days, 15 hours, 29 minutes at an average of 0.46 miles per day. You can also see a map of my bill’s rather simple travels.
The original holder of the money had left a note on Where’s George: “CONGRATULATIONS !!. … … … You have found ‘JOE THE VAN DRIVER’ bill from UPLAND, Southern California. Thank you for taking your time to enter this bill. Now this bill is our bill, let’s see where it is our bill will go next.”
I checked out Joe the Van Driver’s profile and discovered that he is indeed a van driver who ferries disabled people to Day Programs or to see their physicians, who has adopted 18 children, and who turns loose his “George money” at the same store when he stops every day to buy soda, cigarettes, etc. Joe has entered 2,899 bills of which 216 or 7.45% have been checked into Where’s George giving Joe a “George Score” of 827.02.
George Scores are explained in the FAQ thusly: “The George Score is automatically calculated when you enter bills and get hits. The more bills you enter, and more importantly, the more hits you get, the higher your George Score. They aren’t worth anything, and you won’t get any prizes. It is solely for the enjoyment by some users that like to compare themselves with each other. The formula used to calculate your George Score can be found on the ‘Your Bills,’ ‘Profiles by State’ and ‘Top 10 Users’ report. The Score also goes down for inactivity on the site 1% per day after your 5th day of inactivity). To reset your score to its full value, simply run ‘Your Bills’ each time you visit the site. In addition, you need a minimum number of bills entered, bills with hits, and total hits before your bills are scored. Until then, you will be ‘scoreless.’ The only exception to this is on the User Profile Rankings by State report, where your ‘Pre-certified’ George Score is displayed, regardless of the number of bills or hits you have.”
The actual George Score formula is: 100*(SQRT(LN(BillsEntered))+LN(Hits+1))*[1-(Days of Inactivity/100)]
The FAQ also answers the obvious question: “Is it legal to write on or mark currency?” the answer being “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 U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing, please Click Here”
Where’s George has had 120,944,301 bills registered that are worth a total of $664,622,624! The top user goes by the name of “Wattsburg Gary” and has an unofficial George Score of 1,566.12 with 829,633 bills entered and 130,800 or 15.77% hits. Another curious statistic is that the bill with the most hits ever has only been entered 15 times!
Where’s George has been operating since 1998 and is not run for profit but does pay its bills through advertising. If you are of a nerdy persuasion, tracking where your money goes with Where’s George could be just what you’ve been looking for.
