www.wheresgeorge.com header bar

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www.wheresgeorge.com is a website where you can enter the serial number and series (AKA year date) of US paper money (Series 1963 or later), along with the US zipcode or Canadian postcode of the place where you are entering the bill. (There is a list for international users, and this list is composed of US zipcodes to use for locations outside the US or Canada [Many of these zipcodes are the actual codes associated with nearby US military bases, embassies, etc.)

If you register (for free), you can come back later to see if any other people have entered your bills (with their zipcode) and thus see where they've gone to.

I find the site extremely interesting. (and that's an understatement. ) There are more than 3 million registered users and nearly a hundred million bills entered, so plenty of other people also like it. :)

The site's URL/name is often abberviated as "WG"or "Where's George?".

(For a full list of site-related terms, go to one of the following pages: The Encyclopaedia Georgetannica or this one, my own WG dictionary).

The wheresgeorge home page
The wheresgeorge forums

Email me at [email protected], with any questions or comments about this page.
A resource for wheresgeorge.com users- www.wheresgeorge.net
Enter a bill
The 'Where's George?' User Guidelines page
The Canadian version of 'Where's George?', Where's Willy.

Sections of this Page

Basic WG rules Acquiring bills Entering Bills Checking your account The George Score Profile Management

How did you learn about Wheresgeorge? Maybe you saw a marked bill in your normal flow of cash. Maybe you found a marked bill lying in the street. Maybe you read a newspaper or webpage article somewhere about the site. Maybe a friend or acquaintance told you about it.

The point is, this page will help you learn how to use wheresgeorge.com.

Registering

You'll probably want to register for the site. You can enter bills without registering, but you cannot come back to the site later to check to see what's happened to those bills. Seeing what's happened to your bills is the best part of the site. Furthermore, many people enjoy using the statistics the site provides for a registered user's bills. [You may have already registered. If so, to go to the next part, by clicking here.]

To register, you'll need an e-mail address. Go to the WG registration page and fill out the form. You're registered as soon as you confirm your email address. Believe me, you get no sp*m whatsoever from them. The email is used primarilily for tellign you when your bills get a response, or "hit".

Basic Site Rules

There are some rules on 'Where's George?'. For a full list, go here. The basics are:

  • #1. Natural Circulation only!

    • This is the big one. All entered bills should be spent as you would normally spend bills. Among other things, you cannot get bills from a bank, enter them, and then take them right back to the bank. Also, you can't give the bills to a friend or family member if they go and re-enter the bills themselves.

    It is OK to take bills from a friend/family member/classmate/et cetera, enter those bills, and then give them back, as long as that person doesn't re-enter the same bills. (Those people would presumably just spend them as you normally would.

  • #2. Don't go overboard on bill marking.

    • Mark your bills in a sensible manner. (so you don't get in trouble for defacing money!) The URL does not need to be written/stamped in seven places! :) One or two is OK. A few people think even one or two markings is defacement (although it isn't), so be prepared. The legal standard for "defacement" in the US is rendering the defaced bill "unfit to be re-issued", which is something a few normal stmaps don't generally do.

  • #3. Don't create fake hits or fake bills.

    • You cannot hit bills that you do not actually have, just as you cannot enter bills that you do not actually have. If you get a marked bill in the course of normal circulation, enter it only once. In other words, don't make up serial number sot plug into the system. [In fact, the site hides three digits of the serial number with dashes in order to help keep people from creating hits on bills that they don't have.]

    For a humorous look at the site rules, check out 'The Ten Commandments of Georging'.

    Hank (the webmaster of wheresgeorge.com) might delete your account if you break the site rules. I'm warning you. Users refer to this as the threat of getting "Hanked."

    I got a temporary ban once for entering the dollar bill from the Nevermind cover; don't do stuff like that either.

    Acquiring bills

    You can get bills by:

  • the bills you get in normal circulation
  • and bills other people let you enter. In fact, more than half the bills I've entered have come from relatives, teachers, or classmates. If you take other people's bills for the purpose of entering them, please just enter them, mark them, and return them.

    In fact, stealing bills in order to enter them is specifically forbidden by the WG rules. :)

    Entering Bills

    You may enter a bill even if it hasn't been marked yet. All bills start out that way. Somebody started out each and every bill in the system.

    To enter a bill, scroll down to the "enter a bill" section on the main page or click the 'enter a bill' link in the lefthand banner. Filling out the form is pretty self-explanatory.

    Denomination drop box: Obvious. For the "Series" drop box, you select the year date under the word "Series" near the bottom of the bill.

    For the "Serial Number" form, enter the bill's serial number including all letters. Most serial numbers are green, but some very old bills from the 60's have red serial numbers. If the serial number ends or starts in a star, type in an asterisk. (*) (Shift key+8) (The letters are not case-sensitive.)

    Bills dated earlier than 1963 cannot be entered. So don't mark them. Also, if have such a bill, you may want to post in the site's Bill Collectors/Numismatic forum, to ask if the bill's worth much more above face-value, and/or make a transaction to sell it.

    For the Zip/Postal code form, enter the zipcode of the place that you are in when you enter the bill. Canadian Postcodes work in this box. For non-US countries besides Canada, an available pop-up lets you choose the US zipcode nearest your location. (This list of US-style zipcodes comes from US embassies or military bases.)

    In the text box, enter a short note about the bill if you want to. You could use this box for describing the condition of the bill, how you got it, or something else. (It's useful for other users to know more about the bill than just the location it's gone to.)

    You should write or stamp the URL on the bill in order to 'point' people towards the site. You should write/stamp it on the front of the bill. I'd suggest using red or blue ink, since these colors will stand out against a green and black bill. You could also underline the serial number and Series.

    Getting a rubber stamp with www.wheresgeorge.com on is a good idea, as stamped bills generally have a higher hitrate. If you get into the site at all, a stamp is a good investment. Not only will yopu have a higher hitrate, you'll save time on marking your bills.

    If you don't want to spend a lot of money on a stamp, try this: The 'Free Stamp' offer from StampMan.net- you spend only $3 for shipping.

    Many Georgers like Stamp-Connection.com, that is another possibility.

    Both of the above websites have pages dedicated to wheresgeorge stamps. Stamp-Connection, although it's a bit pricier, has a wider selection, better quality, and better customer service.

    Also, any office supply store should be able to make a custom rubber stamp.

    Checking your account

    This is the fun part. [You will get emails from the site whenever one of your bills gets hit. Each of these emails contains a link to that bill's Bill Report.] To check your account, first go to the site and log in. First, enter any bills yothat you feel like entering. Then click on "Your Bills". This page, seems to be the cornerstone of 'Where's George?'. This page lists statistical info about your bills, in several categories. You probably should "Refresh" to get the most current data in there. You can only refresh it once per day. [You don't use the Refresh button on your browser. There is a refresh link near the top of the page. Once you refresh, you may need to click the 'check status' link until the database is finished running the refresh.

    NOTE: Responses on your bills are called hits.

    The 'George Score'

    The George Score is a numerical way to see how you're doing on 'Where's George? compared to other users, and your George Score is listed at the top of your "Your Bills" report. You need at least five hits to get one, and the formula is as follows:

  • 1. Take the natural log (LN) of the number of bills you've entered.
  • 2. Square root the answer to #1. Save this answer.
  • 3. Add 1 to your number of total hits. (not bills with hits, some bills can get 3 or more entries for 2 or more hits)
  • 4. Take the natural log (LN) of the answer to #3.
  • 5. Add the #2 answer to the #4 answer. Save this answer.
  • 6. Divide your "days of inactivity" by 100.
  • 7. Subtract your answer to #6 from 1. (1-#6 answer).
  • 8. Multiply the #5 answer by the #7 answer.

    • "Days of Inactivity" is determined by the number of days since you last refreshed the "Your Bills" report.

    Thankfully, the site's system does these calculations for you. I have also made a spreadsheet file that uses spreadsheet formulas to do the same thing. All you need to do is download the file, and enter in the numbers.
    Download the file (compressed as a .ZIP) here. If you can't, or don't want to, download this file, check out this web-based calculator: http://www.uigrad.com/wg/gscore.cgi

    Profile Management

    You might want to pay a visit to the user profile page, located here. This is a place where you can discuss your WheresGeorge experience in-depth. I've put a page here with advice on making profiles.

    I compiled the bills entered/dollar value totals, as reported on the site's homepage, at various intervals. I put that data into the linked spreadsheet below, and performed some simple calculations based upon it. (Credit to wheresgeorge user "JT from MD" for giving me some of the earlier data points)
    Link (This is a .XLS compressed as a .ZIP)

    Here are some pictures of what one of my previous stamp designs looked like: here.

    That's it. May you have fun and may your George Score rise. Also, you can check out Help pages on the site itself... Happy 'Georging'. "Georging" is a verb that means the process of participating on the site.

    For a full list of site-related terms: click here or here.
    This page is not affiliated with www.wheresgeorge.com in any way, yada yada yada.
    Wheresgeorge names, logos, etc. © Where's George, LLC, 1998-2009. Other content on this page © Alan Gilfoy, 2004-2009.