Where's George?

For the 1935 British comedy, see Where's George? (film).
Where's George?

A screen shot taken from version 2.4 of the Where's George? website
Type of site
 Money circulation tracker
Available in English
Owner Where's George? LLC
Created by Hank Eskin
Website http://www.wheresgeorge.com/
Registration Optional
Launched December 1998
Current status Active

Where's George? is a website that tracks the natural geographic circulation of American paper money. Its popularity has led to the establishment of a number of other currency tracking websites (among which it remains the most popular by far), and sites that track other objects such as used books. Statistics generated by the website have been used in at least one research paper to study patterns of human travel in the United States.[1]

Overview

The site was established in December 1998 by Hank Eskin, a database consultant in Brookline, Massachusetts.[2][3] Where's George? refers to George Washington, whose portrait appears on the $1 bill. In addition to the $1 bill, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100 denominations can be tracked. The $1 bill is by far the most popular denomination, accounting for over 70% of bills with "hits" (explained below), followed by $20 bills, and the $5 bill a close third.[4]

As of January 1, 2016, over 250,144,000 bills, with a total face value of more than $1.38 billion have been entered into the site database.[5]

To track a bill, a user enters their local ZIP code, the serial number of the bill, and series designation of any US currency denomination. Users outside the US also can participate by using an extensive database of unique codes assigned to non-American/Canadian locations. Once a bill is registered, the site reports the time between sightings, the distance between sightings, and any comments from the finders (called "user notes").

The site does not track bills older than series 1963.[6]

Where's George? is supported by advertising, sales of memorabilia, and by users who pay a fee for extra features.[2] The "Friends of Where's George?" (FOG) program allows these users to access the website free of advertisements, access certain features that others cannot, and refresh reports on the user's entered bills. The standard FOG costs $8/month, while FOG+ costs $13/month.[7] Eskin states that the "Friends of Where's George?" program will always be optional and payment to use the site will always be at the individual's option.[7]

Inspired by Where's George, Ben Cohen, the co-founder of Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream, launched Stamp Stampede in 2012 to protest the influence of big money in politics. Stamp Stampede stamps messages like "Not to Be Used for Bribing Politicians" on dollar bills.[8]

Hits

A "hit" occurs when a registered bill is re-entered into the database after its initial entry. Where's George? does not have specific goals other than tracking currency movements, but many users like to collect interesting patterns of hits, called "bingos".[9] One of the most commonly sought after bingos involves getting at least one hit in all 50 states (called "50 State Bingo"). Another common bingo, called "FRB Bingo", occurs when a user gets hits on bills from all 12 Federal Reserve Banks.[10]

Most bills do not receive any responses, or hits, but many bills receive two or more hits. The approximate hit rate is around 11.4%. Double- and triple-hitters are common, and bills with 4 or 5 hits are not unheard of. Almost daily, a bill receives its 6th hit. As of February 2015, the site record is held by a $1 bill with 15 entries (though no new hits have been reported since March 26, 2005).[11]

To increase the chance of having a bill reported, users (called "Georgers") may write or stamp text on the bills encouraging bill finders to visit www.wheresgeorge.com and track the bill's travels.[2] Bills that are entered into the database, but not marked, are known as "naturals", "stealths", or "ghosts". If a bill entry violates the established rules of "natural circulation" (e.g. a user has found the same bill twice, a user has had more than 20 bills wind up with another user, etc.), it is flagged as an "alternate entry". If a user claims a "wild" (A bill found in circulation that has been marked or stamped with wheresgeorge.com as having already been entered on the site.), he or she is the submitters' "child".[12]

Controversy

The site does not encourage the defacement of US currency.[13] In October 1999, when interviewed for The New York Times, Eskin commented on why the Secret Service has not bothered the webmaster over possible defacement of US currency: "They've got better things to do. They want to catch counterfeiters counterfeiting billions of dollars."[3]

In April 2000, the site was investigated by the United States Secret Service, which informed Eskin that the selling of "Where's George?" rubber stamps on the web site is considered "advertising" on United States currency, which is illegal under 18 U.S.C. § 475.[14] The site's administrators immediately ceased selling the rubber stamps; no further action against the site was taken.[2] At least one spokesperson for the US Secret Service has pointed out in print that marking US bills, even if not defacement, can still be illegal if it falls under "advertisement".[15] However, a Secret Service spokesman in Seattle, Washington, told The Seattle Times in 2004: "Quite frankly, we wouldn't spend too much looking into this."[2]

Where's George? and geocaching

Examples of marked bills.

The Where's George? site says it "prohibits trading or exchanging bills with friends, family or anyone known to the bill distributor for the purpose of re-entry".[16][17] This rule is to encourage natural circulation of the currency, and to prevent multiple fake hits from happening on any bill. As a result, all bill entry notes containing the word "geocache" or "cache" are tagged as a geocache bill. The site has also dropped a separate listing of "Top 10 Geocache bills" and is cautioning that, if geocache sites are used too often, "all Geocache bills will be removed from this site".[18]

George Score

The "George Score" is a method of rating users based on how many bills they have entered and also by how many total hits they have had. The formula is as follows:[2]

This logarithmic formula means that the more bills a user enters and the more hits the user receives, the less the user's score increases for each entered bill or new hit. Thus, a user's score does not increase as quickly when the user has entered many bills. The #1 user, Wattsburg Gary, has an official George Score of 1,704.93 (as of February 15, 2015), and was the first user to break the 1500-George-Score mark and the one-million and two-million bills entered mark. Gary has entered over 2,197,536 bills.[19]

Although there is a scoring system, the site makes it clear that this is not intended to be a contest. The site also prohibits marking bills and depositing them into financial institutions.[16][20]

Community

Where's George? includes a community of users that interact via forums. The forums are divided into several categories, ranging from regional to new-member-help threads. Some members of the site also participate in gatherings, held in various cities around the United States. Several of these gatherings have become annual events, and can vary widely in scope and size.[21]

Released in 2006, the documentary film by Brian Galbreath named WheresGeorge.com gives insight into the hobby, the hobbyists, and their get-togethers, which are known as "gatherings". The 27-minute color DVD features various interviews with "Georgers" at a St. Louis, Missouri gathering, and with Hank Eskin (the creator of wheresgeorge.com), as well as narrated information and statistics about the site and culture. The film has aired on PBS affiliates WTTW and WSIU.[22]

Use in research

Although Where's George? does not officially recognize the bills that travel the farthest or fastest, some have approached it as a semi-serious way to track patterns in the flow of the American currency.[23]

Money flow displayed through Where's George was used in a 2006 research paper published by theoretical physicist Dirk Brockmann and his coworkers. The paper described statistical laws of human travel in the United States, and developed a mathematical model of the spread of infectious disease resulting from such travel. The article was published in the January 26, 2006, issue of the journal Nature.[24] Researchers found that 57% of the nearly half a million dollar bills studied traveled between 30 and 500 miles (48 and 805 km) over approximately nine months in the United States.[25] A short clip of a Brockmann's presentation on the subject from the IdeaFestival has been posted on YouTube.[26] More recently, "Where's George?" data have been used to attempt to predict the rapidity and pattern of projected spread of the 2009 swine flu outbreak.[27]

See also

References

  1. ↑ BJS (2006-01-25). "Web game provides breakthrough in predicting spread of epidemics". Science Blog. Retrieved 2006-04-28.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Lacitis, Erik (2004-10-04). "Where's George? Tracking the travels of paper currency". Local News. The Seattle Times Company. Retrieved 2008-07-16.
  3. 1 2 Flaherty, Julie (1999-10-28). "Making It Easy to Find Where the Money Goes". The New York Times.
  4. ↑ Eskin, Hank (2008). "Bill Statistics by Denomination". George's Top 10. Where's George? LLC. Retrieved 2008-07-19.
  5. ↑ Eskin, Hank. "Where's George? ❝Currency Tracking Project❞".
  6. ↑ "Where's George? - Currency Tracking Project - FAQs, Rules/User Guidelines, and Privacy Policy". Wheresgeorge.com. Retrieved 2013-12-27.
  7. 1 2 Eskin, Hank (2008). "The 'Friends of Where's George?' Program". Tools/Fun. Where's George LLC. Retrieved 2008-07-19.
  8. ↑ Brooks, Raillan (26 June 2013). "Ben & Jerry's Co-Founder Ben Cohen Is Stamping His Balls Off to Get Money out of Politics".
  9. ↑ "Main Page - Where's George? Wiki".
  10. ↑ "Encyclopædia Georgetannica". Slowpoke. 2007. Retrieved 2007-08-23.
  11. ↑ Eskin, Hank (2007). "Top 10 Bills Report - All Denominations". George's Top 10. Where's George? LLC. Retrieved 2008-07-19.
  12. ↑ "The 'Friends of Where's George?' Program". 2014. Retrieved 2014-07-26.
  13. ↑ "Where's George? ® 2.4 Frequently Asked Questions". Wheresgeorge.com. Retrieved 2011-12-06.
  14. ↑ "§ 475. Imitating obligations or securities; advertisements". Cornell Law School. 2006. Retrieved 2006-09-29.
  15. ↑ Moyer, Laura (2004-09-29). "Following the money". News. The Free Lance-Star Publishing Company.
  16. 1 2 User Guidelines/Terms of Service/Rules, no. 4
  17. ↑ User Guidelines/Terms of Service/Rules, no. 1
  18. ↑ Eskin, Hank (2008). "Rules for using Where's George? with Geocaching". Where's George? 2.2. Where's George? LLC. Archived from the original on June 5, 2008. Retrieved 2008-07-03.
  19. ↑ Eskin, Hank. "Top Users Report". Where's George. Archived from the original on 2013-08-09. Retrieved 2013-10-14. 1. Wattsburg Gary 1,684.61 2,087,265 381,519 456,557 18.28%
  20. ↑ User Guidelines/Terms of Service/Rules, no. 7.
  21. ↑ Eskin, Hank (2008). "Unofficial Where's George?/Where's Willy? Gatherings". Where's George?/Where's Willy? Discussion. Wheres George? LLC. Retrieved 2008-07-03.
  22. ↑ Galbreath, Brian (2006). Wheresgeorge.com. Brian Galbreath Productions.
  23. ↑ "Where's George?: The Trail Of $1 Bills Across The U.S.". NPR. 2013-03-24. Retrieved 2013-12-27.
  24. ↑ Brockmann, D; L. Hufnagel; T. Geisel (2006-01-26). "The scaling laws of human travel" (PDF). Nature. 439 (7075): 462–465. doi:10.1038/nature04292. PMID 16437114. Retrieved 2006-04-28.
  25. ↑ Associated Press (2006-01-26). "Researchers' plan to track disease: follow 'Where's George' cash trail". Health and medicine. St. Petersburg Times. Retrieved 2008-07-16.
  26. ↑ Brockmann, Dirk. "Money Circulation Science" (Flash). IdeaFestival 2007. YouTube.com. Retrieved 2007-10-17.
  27. ↑ McNeil, Donald G. (May 3, 2009). "Predicting Flu With the Aid of (George) Washington". The New York Times. Retrieved 2009-05-05.
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