Sunday, February 25, 2007

Where's George?

When I came home from Portland last week, I noticed some red and blue writing on one of my dollar bills when I took it out of my pocket.

So I went to WheresGeorge.com, entered the bill along with its current postition (Waterford, VA) and found that it had recently been added in Beaverton, OR -- not a short distance away, but easily explainable given that I just came back from Portland).

After poking around a bit, I became hooked and went about figuring out how to more actively participate. First off I had to get my own stamps so I could stamp my bills. Unfortunately, WheresGeorge.com doesn't sell stamps (according to Wikipedia, the secret service investigated and told them it was illegal because it amounted to advertising on money). Poking around a bit (googling "WheresGeorge Rubber Stamp") I found several places, selected Stamp-Connection.com and ordered my stamps. They came in yesterday and I'm off and running, entering all of the cash lying about.

I am concerned a bit about dealing with the cash that I get during the day... What if I spend it before I enter it... Should I log it immediately... Should I only spend marked cash and save the unmarked cash for marking when I'm home... Gosh... It's like blogging & watching readership stats... It's addictive..

Of course, for those privacy weenies out there, I do realize that I'm giving up some of the anonymous properties of my cash transactions... but it's fun!

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

As a six-year "georger", let me offer some advice.

DO NOT mark and/or spend bills before ENTERING them on the website. It causes confusion, can effect the integrity of the database, and can lead to people finding tagged WG money that hasn't been initially entered (as in should you mark and spend but forget to enter).

The rule of thumb is ENTER-MARK-SPEND.

I keep marked bills separate from any new bills I receive in change until I get the chance to EMS.

Also ... It can take quite a while for your spent bills to generate any hits at all. So don't get discouraged if you don't get any "action" right away.

Of course there is no standard amount of time and energy that will guarantee hits coming your way. But it can take hundreds of bills to generate any "excitement", if you will.

Good luck!

Have fun, and check out the forums at WG. There a lot of very nice people in our group, who are willing to help any newbie.

- Hatboro Mike

Anonymous said...

If I were you I would cover up the Serial numbers on the bills. Bills posted on the internet with serial numbers lead to false entries and the Bill could be voided in the Wheresgeorge database.

Anonymous said...

I'd love to find out how many hits you've gotten from your bills so far. Will you be doing another blog to update your experiences?

I agree with the post from Hatboro Mike... Enter, Mark, Spend... ALWAYS!

How many bills have you hit so far?