In our germ-phobic society we often don't think about how far money travels and how many hands a single dollar has touched. Well now we can. If you ever received a dollar bill (or any denomination) with a red stamp on the back that says “please report this bills location ... wheresgeorge.com you can see where that bill has been.
The Where's George project was started December 1998. Back then the site sold rubber stamps so people could stamp bills they wanted to track. There are 245 million bills that were stamped, more than a billion dollars worth of currency. The stamped bills account for about 10 percent of the total bills in circulation.
Money really travels. One bill listed on the site has traveled 6,479 miles in just under six years. It started in Montana, found it's way to Florida, then Kentucky, Indiana, and Alabama. Then it visited Tennessee, Illinois, Georgia and Virginia. It scooted down to Louisiana, and then a couple of months ago landed in Missouri.
I just received a bill that tracked back to Florida. I sent it off today by purchasing at one of our local Laguna Niguel merchants. And I'll be keeping an eye out for more stamped bills ... trying not to think of the germs.
