These are the singles, marked with red ink that said, "Track this bill at www whereisgeorge.com." Some were also marked in the margins with blue ink, identifying the bill for this study. The Tracking Project website shows a series listing that ranges from 1968 to 2009, and at from three to four-year intervals between the series selected for the study. The only four that I managed to hoard are from series 2003 and 2003A. Question --- Did any of our good membership have the interest or desire to collect these Tracking Study bills? If this thread results in silence, it will confirm that I'm a loony nutcase. It's probably best that I live on an island, where I can't do much harm.
I still don't know how I feel about these tracking sites. They are all over the world. I would find a great radar bill or other collectible note only to find it stamped or in some cases hand written on the back "Track this bill @ www.....) I then discovered that the paper money forum I belong to works in tandem with "Where's Willy?" the Canadian version because they keep records of the serial numbers and sometimes the plate numbers. Where's Willy addicts stamp hundreds of bills daily to send out into the marketplace and then list the numbers on their website. I suppose, in one way it's an important asset when tracking large volumes of bank notes but I'm still not happy with finding so many of them.
I like the idea of where's george, i just hate the ugly stamps and junked up red/blue ink all over our notes. Also, people don't just place one stamp but often times several!!!
I have put a couple bills in there when I find them. It is a pretty cool dataset they have. Some researchers actually have used it to model the spread of epidemics, check out this video: http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2010/02/money.html
I put a few where is george notes out in circulation and I haven't gotten a single hit. I haven't seen one that someone else stamped in a long time. I got a stack of $1's a few weeks ago and there were no stamped notes in it.
If you hoard them then it kind of defeats the purpose doesn't it? I've gotten two of them and I went on the database and entered where I got it and then later spent them. Neither had traveled very far as I recall. I've never gone back and checked later.
There are some WG note collectors pulling notes out of circulation but they can't get all the ones that get shredded if pulled by the banks and sent back to the Fed.
Yes, I did. I used to be interested on collecting these Tracking Study bills. You're not a loony nutcase.
My wife just got wo WG notes and tracked them, but saw they all came from our neck of the woods in PA. I think she spent them. I must admit that I'm not a big fan of placing those ugly stamps all over the back of the dollar. Detracts from the note.