+PainTaker Posted December 28, 2003 Share Posted December 28, 2003 I found a Wild George token in a cache and I tried to look it up on Wheregeroge.com and it said that it is an invalid number (SN on dollar bill). The item is a reduced size photo copy of a dollar bill. Can anyone tell me about how to track them. It was stamped with both geocaching.com and wheresgeorge.com. Thanks. PainTaker Quote Link to comment
+sea_dragon Posted December 28, 2003 Share Posted December 28, 2003 (edited) I haven't heard of these before either. Maybe it's a signature item from another cacher. Is there any mention of a "Wild George" in the logs for the cache you pulled it out of? On closer investigation, I see that there is a cacher by the name of Wild george, and looks to be active in your (rather general) area. Hope this helps. (Edited to add more info.) Edited December 28, 2003 by sea_dragon Quote Link to comment
+CraZy Cache Posted December 28, 2003 Share Posted December 28, 2003 Where's George $'s are not photo copies of $'s. They are the real thing usually stamped or marked and are either spent or placed in a cache! Not real sure what you found unless it is as Sea Dragon said and is a trade mark for a cacher called Wild George. CraZy Cache Quote Link to comment
cutsandbruises Posted December 28, 2003 Share Posted December 28, 2003 Where's George $'s are not photo copies of $'s. They are the real thing usually stamped or marked and are either spent or placed in a cache! Not real sure what you found unless it is as Sea Dragon said and is a trade mark for a cacher called Wild George. CraZy Cache Yesterday I found a Where's George dollar bill in a cache and it was laminated and a sticker on it said to log it on Where's George and then place it in the next cache. Now there are two schools of thought out there on Where's George dollars. One says that these dollars should be spent just like any other dollar bill and that is how we track their natural flow through society. The other is people just moving them from cache to cache but logging them. I truthfully dont care which way the dollar bills are moved but the purist think they should be spent and never placed in a cache. This is not a normal movement of currency. The guy who laminated the dollar I found obviously just wants it to stay in caches and never spent like normal currency. Is this acceptable ( probably not!!). Quote Link to comment
+CraZy Cache Posted December 28, 2003 Share Posted December 28, 2003 I haven't seen one that was laminated...I know that you can write on a $ as long as it doesn't render it unspendable. Laminating may be stretching the legal limits of defacing the $. Is it now not spendable? There are many debates over WG$ and putting them in caches. I place them in caches and spend them. Some have said that the WG$ site will kick those out that they find in just geocaches. I have never experienced that though. But then again, I mix mine all up. I sometimes spend ones I find in caches. If it is just going to go from cache to cache, then they should just use a travel bug! CraZy Cache Quote Link to comment
+harleycache Posted December 28, 2003 Share Posted December 28, 2003 There are many debates over WG$ and putting them in caches. I place them in caches and spend them. Some have said that the WG$ site will kick those out that they find in just geocaches. I have never experienced that though. But then again, I mix mine all up. I sometimes spend ones I find in caches. If it is just going to go from cache to cache, then they should just use a travel bug! CraZy Cache Interesting! I just put two in caches I found today, not really caring whether they are spent or put in the next cache. I never really thought about it, re: being spent vs. being cached. I did enter them at wheresgeorge.com with the cache name and coordinates. I also put www.geocaching.com on the bills. Who knows, if they get spent, maybe the geocaching site entered will arouse enough curiosity in the person who then received the bill to get them started caching. I will check back at wheresgeorge though to see if they get kicked out. Quote Link to comment
+Sparky-Watts Posted December 28, 2003 Share Posted December 28, 2003 WheresGeorge will still track geocaching WGDs, but just won't include them in any of the top 10 lists. If they know they are from caches, they earmark them as such. They don't "kick" them out. Quote Link to comment
+Lone Duck Posted December 29, 2003 Share Posted December 29, 2003 Wild George Tokens Seems I've found the source of these mysterious "coins." Quote Link to comment
BassoonPilot Posted December 30, 2003 Share Posted December 30, 2003 I've found several "Georges" that were laminated. I de-laminate the bill before recirculating it (usually into another cache.) Quote Link to comment
+Navdog Posted December 30, 2003 Share Posted December 30, 2003 Maybe this is what you are talking about. These Wild George Tokens are made by Utah cacher Wild George and seem to be numbered. They don't look like something you track at WG. Quote Link to comment
bbmagic Posted December 31, 2003 Share Posted December 31, 2003 (edited) Maybe this is what you are talking about. These Wild George Tokens are made by Utah cacher Wild George and seem to be numbered. They don't look like something you track at WG. While on vacation in Utah a few weeks ago I went after some travel bugs and came across a 'Wild George' token #607 with the addresses for both geocaching.com and wheregeorge.com printed on it. I innocently tried to enter it on wheresgeorge.com and they suspended my membership! These are NOT to be used on wheresgeorge! I got a stern lecture (ok, it wasn't stern at all, but it could have been!) from Hank about why they're fouling up his database and he asked me politely to destroy it. Since it's NOT a real bill (a miniature photocopy) it's inappropriate to manipulate his website to track them. We both agreed that it's better to attach them to a TB dog tag if you want to know where they're going. I thought Wild George was on to a great idea, but I've since learned otherwise! bbmagic Edited December 31, 2003 by bbmagic Quote Link to comment
GrandpaCannon Posted December 31, 2003 Share Posted December 31, 2003 Wild George is one of our very active cachers here in Utah. I met him at a cache once and he was very friendly. As far as I know, these tokens are meant to be signature items and not tracked anywhere. I do not think Wild George ever intended for anyone to register his token with WG.com. I think it has the two web addresses (gc.com and wg.com) to promote both websites and "hobbies" I would love to have Wild George read this thread and respond, I hope that he gets the chance. Quote Link to comment
+Wild George Posted December 31, 2003 Share Posted December 31, 2003 (edited) When I first made my tokens, I considered for a long time all the different ways of making them and tried to avoid having them cause any problems. Looks like it didn't turn out that way. I used to put real Where's George dollars in each cache I found but that became expensive (I have over 600 finds) so I switched to dollar bill signature tokens. The token that Navdog has was what I using before the change. So for my 200th find I decided to come up with a new sig token. The one I eventually created is the one now causing the problems. First of all, it should be noted that the tokens are significantly smaller than real bills (less that 1/4 the size). That along with that fact they are laminated should make them legal and not be confused with a real bill. (The Treasury department does not considers bills that are very obviously a different size than the original as attempts at counterfeiting). The bill is a copy of my "Where's George in Minnesota" TB. I also tried to blank out a few of the numbers in the serial number but I never could get something that looked half-way decent. It was always very obvious that it had been changed poorly and just didn't have the effect I wanted. I was so concerned at not getting in trouble with the Treasury guys that I never considered that anyone would actually enter the serial number at WG.com. In reflection, I realize that it would be a very natural thing for someone to do especially because it's clearly has the WG site URL and is marked "Track this bill". That all said, I'm am truly sorry to all of you who have been affected negatively at the Where's George site. It was never my intent to cause any trouble with the tokens. But I knew there was a problem when the bill started climbing the Geocaching Bill list and eventually became number one with 21 hits. At this point, Hank at Where's George banned the bill and wrote me a nasty gram about the bill. Everything he said about the bill was true and I should have never created it in the first place. I told him I was sorry and that I would never do anything like that again. The problem was that there were about 400 of the tokens in circulation and it would be impossible to contact every person who finds one and tell them not to enter it at the WG site. But I figured that since the bill was blocked as a bill in a public place, that would be the end of it. It's only recently that other events involving Where George travel bugs have resulted in a redefined policy at WG.com that apparently makes it a banning offense to enter the serial number of my token. I even got a note from 9Key, a geocaching.com admin in Texas that he got banned at WG for entering the number. I felt bad about that happening as I do will all those who got banned. Problem is, I really like the look of the laminated dollar bill token and, as a signature item, I hate to give it up. So starting with the next batch I make (I'm out right now), I will blank out the serial number and if I can't learn to use the photo editing software any better, than so be it, it will look funny. But at least they won't cause any further problems. So please, if you have one of my Wild George tokens or find one in a cache, don't enter the serial number. It will get you banned and I don't want that to happen to anyone. Sorry this has been so long, but it's length is representative of the time and consideration I gave the matter before I made up my token. Even then, it didn't have a happy ending. Just so you will know what they look like, here's an image of one: And just in case you have really good eyes, please don't enter the serial number I hope this clears the up the matter of my tokens. Again, I never intended to cause any problems by using them. Edited December 31, 2003 by Wild George Quote Link to comment
bbmagic Posted December 31, 2003 Share Posted December 31, 2003 Great reply, Wild George. You are correct, the bill is 'legal' and very eye-catching. I scribbled out the serial number on the token I have (I still have it...I couldn't bring myself to destroy it!). Maybe you could take a few digits off the bill. Then wheresgeorge.com won't even recognize it. Hank seemed a little upset about the whole thing, mostly because there's no way he can prevent them from being entered. He did say that you meant no harm at all by doing it. Just one of those unfortunate things! Hank was quick to reinstate my account, too. Took about 20 minutes for his reply is all, so no harm done at all on my end. Cheers! bbmagic Quote Link to comment
+Doc-Dean Posted December 31, 2003 Share Posted December 31, 2003 And just in case you have really good eyes, please don't enter the serial number Its amazing what people will do! Unless you want to be banned!! Quote Link to comment
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