Just how far does a dollar go these days?
If anyone would know, it would be Hank Eskin.
Eskin’s not an economist at the University of Chicago or a househusband on a tight budget. He’s the mastermind of the Web site Where’s George, which encourages people to stamp dollar bills and track the notes’ migration all over the world.
What started as merely an excuse to build a Web site has turned into a popular on-line parlor game and provided yet another potential diversion – if not addiction – for PC fiends.
The setup is simple. Mark the back of a bill with the address of the site – www.wheresgeorge.com – and send the bill back into circulation. Then go to the Web site, log the bill by serial number and wait for a person to run across the note, visit the site and log the number again. You will be e-mailed automatically whenever there’s a “hit.”
In a little more than a year since Where’s George debuted, participants have put more than $14 million worth of marked bills into circulation. One dollar bill started in New Jersey, ventured to Ireland and returned to Jersey.
Eskin’s sophisticated site has grown to include a busy bulletin board where a fairly tight-knit community swaps stories of far-flung currency and chats about life in general. The more avid members compete to see who can rack up the highest George Score — based on the number of bills entered and how many hits they attract — and whose bills travel farthest.
The site quickly was a success. “Right after I built it and got a good response and cleaned up the site, I knew it was going to be big at some point,” Eskin said. “I didn’t predict the addictive nature of it.”
Back in late 1998, Eskin, a data warehouse architect from Massachusetts, was searching for a seductive idea to use as the basis for a Web site. He wanted to see if he could build a good one.
“The idea just sort of came to me one day,” said Eskin. “I had a bill in my pocket with a chain-letter message on it. One of those that says, `Mark 10 bills with this message and good luck will come to you.'”
With luck in his pocket, Eskin created the site and started a mini-craze.
Where’s George is funded by advertisements and the sale of $15 rubber stamps that make the fanatics’ lives easier. The stamps carry the message: “See where I’ve been. Track where I go next! www.wheresgeorge.com.” They come in handy for people like Adam Kushner, who alone is responsible for dispatching 81,000 bills. He stamps bill after bill while chatting on-line late at night.
He admits it has become a bit of an obsession, which he takes everywhere, even on the Garden State Parkway.
“Yes, I stand in line at the toll booth just to get another bill out there,” he confessed by e-mail. “I also stop at two different gas stations on the parkway — I get a half-tank at each.”
He rarely uses a credit card these days. He makes his car payments and pays his dentist bill with singles.
While no one else seems quite that fanatical, others are giving Kushner a run for his money.
“I was immediately hooked, especially after I got my first hit,” noted Doug Younger, a computer programmer from Pennsylvania who is in second place behind Kushner on the Where’s George hit parade. “I am most proud of the fact that I recently achieved my goal of a hit from all 50 states, and also of the hits I have received from overseas, most notably the U.S. Embassy in Moscow, Russia.”
Younger has helped modify and upgrade the site on occasion. Younger’s technological know-how — he developed scripts that help him automatically enter bills and track their whereabouts on his own offshoot Web site — also helped him grab second place on Where’s George from “MsKushner” — yes, Adam’s mother.
The elder Kushner, whose dispute with Younger over who gets credit for the hit at the embassy in Moscow has the makings of a bad spy novel, says she enjoys the diversion that Where’s George provides: “Sometimes for the challenge, sometimes to relieve tension of everyday life, and sometimes just to pass time when there is no good TV on.”
Eskin seems charmed by the community that has popped up, especially by the emergence of elders who help answer newbies’ questions.
“Ms. K, Adam’s mom, six months ago was very active in the public forums. But then she dropped out for a while, because apparently her mom was sick,” Eskin said. “When she returned recently to the forums, the response was interesting. People revere her like she’s Jesus when she posts. It’s kind of funny to see the response. People really respect her.”
So we know the exercise can be addictive. Is it legal? Doesn’t stamping a bill constitute defacement, which is a federal offense?
Claudia Dickens, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Treasury Department’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing, said: “Anything done to make U.S. currency unusable is an offense regulated by the U.S. Secret Service. In order to deface a note, it has to be rendered unable for anyone else to use it. And stamping a bill in such a manner alone is not necessarily rendering it unusable.”
Dickens added that the bureau is aware of the Web site and that marking bills in any manner “is not something we would endorse.”
Eskin, who said he has researched the applicable laws, said: “I guess in the back of my head, I fear that phone call from the Secret Service about the Web site saying, `We want to shut it down.’ But you’d think they would have contacted me by now.”
Meanwhile, as if to keep the good karma on his side, Eskin promises to donate $1 from the sale of each rubber stamp to a different charity each month.
He still spends about 20 to 30 hours per week on the site and remains a regular contributor to the forum, overseeing his flock. And if the competition shows no sign of easing, neither does the sportsmanship. MsKushner is planning a spring get-together for others in the Northwest who have a George jones. It will be in Atlantic City, the perfect place to drop a lot of small bills.
