This star brought a tear to my eye....

I stamp, you hoard.

I'm an avid COIN collector but I don't understand the fuss about stamping bills with "wheresgeorge". If you can collect and hoard bills (like I collect and hoard coins) why can't I put my stamp on my bills? I'm sure Uncle Sam would rather I stamp and spend rather than collect and hoard.

 

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Post #6 of this thread reads in part:

As I explained in the above, this is willful intent so thereby stamping United States Currency with Wheres George stamps is a violation of United States Federal Law if the bills get destroyed soley because of Wheres George stamps and the user knows this will happen. This is willful intent. Fortunately for the Wheres George addicts, these Federal rules are not often enforced.


Feel lucky and fortunate that you three do not live in North Korea where the punishment for writing on currency can be as high as death! If the United States Federal Government would write a similiar law and actually enforce it, I would be willing to bet that I would stop seeing anymore disrespectful writings on United States Currency! No more Wheres George stamps or counting numbers would ever turn up on old bills or stars again!

 

What is a "fitness standard machine" ? and what does it look like ?:secret:

 

I see many bills with handwriting on them. Some are numbers like "200" which I assume was written on the bill to indicate either $200 or 200 bills in a particular bundle. Is this also a serious offense? Do these offenders need to be prosecuted and sent to the federal pen?

What about marks made by "counterfeit detector" pens? Should those that mark on currency with these pens be rounded up and thrown in the slammer?

If the answers to the above questions are "yes" then we will need to build a LOT more prisons for these dangerous felons.

 

Bills That I Have Entered










These are just some of the many bills I have entered at wheresgeorge. I have entered, marked, and spent 22 star notes, 7 1963B $1 Barr notes, 2 1969 $1 bills, 1 1981 and 1 1981A $1 bill, a 1985 $20 bill, a 1988 and 5 1988A $1 bill, a 1990 $20 bil, 2 1993 $1, and one 1993 $10 bill, a 1995 $10, 2 1995 $5 bills and numerous 1995 $1 bills. I enter every bill that passes through my hands, unless it’s a web note, short run star note, or has an error or a cool serial number. Having wheresgeorge stamps on bills doesn’t mean the bill will get shredded. The scanners the BEP has checks the bills using a red colored light. If a wheresgeorge bill with red marking gets scanned the scanner doesn't see it because it is red. That’s why red is the most common color used for stamping. I have got some really neat hits while doing this hobby. It’s really interesting to see where my money goes after I spend it. If I run across a collectable bill I offer it for sale on the wheresgeorge forums. Usually nobody wants them so I mark and spend the bills. There is nothing illegal about marking on money. It’s only illegal if you mark over the security features of the bill, making it unfit for circulation. If star notes are so valuable where do I go to sell them? from my experience trying to sell them its not worth the time to put them in an envelope and mailing them out only to get face value for them when I could have just entered marked and spent it. Even the older Barr notes aren’t selling for more than $1.25. The silver certificates are only selling for $1.50. That’s only 50 cents over face after 50 years! I doubt any bills made from the 1950's to now will ever go up in value because there were so many printed. I don't care if you don't like one bill that was entered into wheresgeorge, but don't make the entire site and its users look bad.

 

By the way, the bills I posted above will be spent next time I need to buy something, just like I would spend normal bills. Hopefully the person that gets them in change will not complain or whine about the markings, and enter them like they are suppose to do. I also hope the bills travel far distances and get hits in states I have not got hits in yet. I’ll keep you guys posted if I get a hit on any of these bills.

 

Coinlover, I have no intention of you being a foe of mine but I happen to know that you yourself are holding a grudge against cointalk and you posting such disturbing scans is just retaliation over some other users giving you a hard time last month over what else? A wheres george bill! Seems like to me all wheres george does, being so harmless that it is, is stir up controversy!

 

You can read through the message boards and find that many Where's George'd bills make it through straps of bills issued by the Federal Reserve banks. From what I've observed, bills that do not have markings anywhere on the features of the bill usually get through their scanners. So, marking in the margins like I do is not a problem. In fact, a lot of stamping designs are not problems. It is only the newer less informed Georgers who usually purposely mark over bill features, and they do not even realize their bills could be destroyed by the Federal Reserve Banks.

Furthermore, you have to consider that a bill can theoretically circulate for years without ever getting to the Feds in the first place.

 

What would happen to the chain of command if we all entered that bill into the george thing? Funny if it showed up in 14 states on the same day. How legitimate is the information?

 

nos,
why don't you offer to buy every star note!

 

Hank (the owner) and the rest of the administrative team try everything they can to keep bills from getting "false" hits. A bill like this would be noticed immediately if updated 14 times instantly, as it would be the top bill on the site. The database is not perfect, but there are not too many huge errors on the site. There are ways to try and verify quite a few things with IP addresses and the like.

Also, on the official WG? forums, you can't post a picture with the full serial number. Here, that is not the case.

 

Look, the fact of the matter is that currency gets marked up every day, be it a normal circulated 2003A note or a 1953 $10 Silver Certificate (See one of my other threads for details). The fact of the matter is, most people there check notes for short runs, webs (where applicable), binaries, etc. In fact, the whole reason that I got into collecting paper money was through the collector forum at Where's George? Most people will not mark up a short run star, binary, radar, repeater, old note, or anything else of value before offering it up for sale. There are a few people who are self-proclaimed "anti-collectors" who stamp everything enterable, but that is not much different from those who stamp bills with "I grew Hemp", and are a small minority of the Where's George community. I personally offer whatever is of any possible value on their collector's forum, and then list some on the Open forum here, or vice versa. 75% of the time, the bills are sold. The other 25% usually are spent, unless I feel like a dealer would take it, or I can afford to have the bill in my collection.

Nick

 

The way I see it, writing on or stamping a rare(er) dollar bill is similar to cleaning a coin in the end result. Both acts damage a collectible and the actor may think he's doing something good to the collectible. I would just rather see crappy bills get stamped by wheres george people than crisp star notes, radars, ladders, older bills, etc.

 

Obviously the people of wheres george are not intelligent enough to differentiate between high-grade old collector notes or high-grade rare star notes from the more worn notes. I do not CARE one bit if the star note posted on here has a value of only $2 or an old Barr from 1970 is only worth fifty cents over face value! What I do care about is the significant historical value of these bills and the fact that there ARE collectors who would have rather enjoyed them in a collection than for them to be ruined or "cleaned" as wrucmike has politely put it.

Given the above factors, what I am proposing is that NO star note be allowed to be entered on the site and no bill from before the series year 1988A be allowed to be entered, either. The only exception to this rule would be for bills that were already entered into the site before such changes were implemented. This will significantly reduce the amount of old historic bills as well as possibly rare star notes from being stamped and thus ruined for people in the future to enjoy.

 

Funny

I haven't laughed so hard in years... I just had to say HELLO!

-Eric-

 

How'd I do?

All get checked (by me anyway) for sale on eBay.

Got $360 once for 2 consec. $50* notes.

 

Wow. A few folks here need to take a chill pill. If you spent any time on the WG site, you would know that as here, and as in life, some folks are intelligent and some are not, with may gradations in between. Many georgers are aware of the potential collectible value of older or rare notes such as short-run stars or web notes, and many (like me) will check or inquire on the forums to be sure before entering or stamping a possibly valuable bill.

Some georgers may not do this but, as others have noted, they are no different than the many other people who mark bills for various reasons.

As for the legality, if you spent any time on the WG site, you would also know that the Secret Service investigated the site many years ago. If the Secret Service (which enforces the laws regarding defacement) doesn't have a problem with what we are doing, perhaps you should relax. I would like to see the evidentiary support behind the claim that marked bills never make it through the FRBs. We have (at least) anecdotal evidence to the contrary.

As noted by others, no Georger acts with the intent that a bill not be re-issued. Quite the contrary. Hard to see how any of you can comment on our intent when you don't know us and haven't bothered to try.

Carry on. Your ranting won't impact our enjoyment of this hobby one little bit.

 

funny and sad in the same line

That's too funny. Do you always make such broad judgments?

 

"The Secret Service would consider it a violation of 475," spokeswoman Lorie Lewis said. "But whether or not the U.S. Attorney's office would prosecute would be up to the U.S. Attorney's office."

Like I said, it's like going 60 in a 55. Let's just say I'm hoping george gets pulled over

 

If you have a proposal for WG, then you should join the site and make the proposal. We have a forum just for proposals to change the site and you can post it there. Your proposal will be rejected, but you might learn something in the process. Then, if you want to continue to rant against georgers, you can at least do so from an informed position, rather than an ignorant one.

My father always warned against "contempt before investigation."