Wednesday, March 10, 2010

George is in West Virginia

and I know most of you are now wondering who the hell George is and why you should care?

Last year I went to Seattle on business and I was handed a dollar bill for change and it was marked www.wheresgeorge.com. Well I had read about the website and thought it was a neat idea. To spend the dollar and see where it would end up. The German’s just aren’t cool like that. Even though your chances would now be pretty good that your Euro would end up somewhere else than in Germany, in another country also belonging to the Euro Zone, I doubt anyone would care. Plus the smallest bill is a five Euro bill. I wish we had 1 Euro bills. I hate change and bulging wallets (unless it was a wad of 100’s LOL) But whatever.

So I received the Dollar, went online to see where it had started from and it came from Blair, Nebraska. Cool. I knew I would continue on to Connecticut and took it all the way from Seattle, Washington to North Granby, Connecticut. Too bad I forgot to register it there straight away but did so in September. Anyway, just last weekend I received an email that George has been found and is now hanging out in Bud, West Virginia. Way to go George.

Here’s a photo of “my George” as I call him ever so lovingly:

168

Wikipedia states that:

A hit is 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. The most common bingo involves getting at least one hit in all 50 states (called "50 State Bingo"). Another bingo, called FRB Bingo, is when a user gets hits on bills from all 12 Federal Reserve Banks.[6]

Most bills do not receive any responses, or hits, but many bills receive two or more hits. The average hit rate is slightly over 11.1%. 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. The site record is held by a $1 bill with 15 entries.[7]

I doubt that “my” George is gonna make the “50 State Bingo” but should you see him, please register him and send greetings across the pond :)

Click here for George’s URL.

6 comments:

Melisa Wells said...

"your" George: hahahaha

So funny.

I wonder if he misses you.

kat said...

Melisa haha probably not, though he had it warm and cozy in my wallet for a while. Then I just abandoned him :(. I bet he hates me and never wants to see me again. LOL

Maggie Moo said...

Super cool! I've seen people write things on dollar bills to see if they ever come back to the same person but never saw this! Very cool.

Tara R. said...

I have a couple of Georges registered too. I would probably have a better chance of getting some 'hits' if I actually recirculated them.

It's kinda depressing though, my money travels more than I do.

Anonymous said...

Too bad I never carry cash...I might never see George! LOL
(I'm an ATM girl...no credit cards anymore.)

Brian o vretanos said...

That sounds great until you find a note that came from The Contagious Diseases Research Institute or whatever...

On their "Assorted Cool and Interesting Money Related Links" page they have a link to a German "KroetenWanderung" site.