Discover

(Redirected from Large denomination bills in U.S. currency)

Today, the currency of the United States, the U.S. dollar, is printed in bills in denominations of $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50, and $100.

Series 1934 $100,000 bill, Obverse

Series 1934 $100,000 bill, Reverse

Series 1918 $10,000 bill, Obverse

Series 1918 $10,000 bill, Reverse

Series 1918 $5,000 bill, Obverse

Series 1918 $5,000 bill, Reverse

Series 1928 or 1934 $1,000 bill, Obverse

Series 1928 or 1934 $1,000 bill, Reverse

Series 1928 or 1934 $500 bill, Obverse

Series 1928 or 1934 $500 bill, Reverse

At one time, however, it also included five larger denominations. Shown here is a $100,000 Gold certificate from 1934. High-denomination currency was prevalent from the very beginning of U.S. Government issue (1861). $500, $1,000, and $5,000 interest bearing notes were issued in 1861, and $10,000 gold certificates arrived in 1865. There are many different designs and types of high-denomination notes.
The high-denomination bills were issued in a small size in 1929, along with the $1 through $100 denominations. Their designs were as follows:

★ The $500 bill featured a portrait of William McKinley

★ The $1,000 bill featured a portrait of Grover Cleveland

★ The $5,000 bill featured a portrait of James Madison

★ The $10,000 bill featured a portrait of Salmon P. Chase

★ The $100,000 bill featured a portrait of Woodrow Wilson
The reverse designs featured abstract scrollwork with ornate denomination identifiers. All were printed in green, except for the $100,000. The $100,000 is an odd bill, in that it was not generally issued, and printed only as a gold certificate of Series of 1934. These gold certificates (of denominations $100, $1,000, $10,000, and $100,000) were issued after the gold standard was repealed and gold was compulsorily purchased by presidential order of Franklin Roosevelt on March 9, 1933 (''see'' United States Executive Order 6102), and thus were used only for intra-government transactions. They are printed in orange on the reverse, 'and are illegal to own'. All known pieces are in government museums. This series was discontinued in 1940. The other bills are printed in black and green as shown by the $10,000 example (pictured at right).

Contents

Correction on owning a Gold Certificate Bill:

Fake denominations

References

Correction on owning a Gold Certificate Bill:

The Gold Reserve Act of 1933 required the surrender of all Gold Certificates, both large and small size. Possession was considered illegal until April 24, 1964 when secretary of the Treasury C. Douglas Dillon removed all restrictions on the acquisition or holding of Gold Certificates. It has since been legal to collect them. Small size Gold Certificates are considered more rare than large size Gold Certificates.
Although they are still technically legal tender in the United States, high-denomination bills were last printed in 1945 and officially discontinued on July 14, 1969, by the Federal Reserve System. US BEP large banknote images, Money Factory. The $5,000 and $10,000 effectively disappeared well before then: there are only about 200 $5,000 and 300 $10,000 bills known, of all series since 1861. Of the $10,000 bills, 100 were preserved for many years by Benny Binion, the owner of Binion's Horseshoe casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, where they were displayed in a glass case. The case is no longer there, and the bills were sold to collectors.
Circulation of high-denomination bills was halted in 1969 by executive order of President Richard Nixon, in an effort to combat organized crime.
For the most part, these bills were used by banks and the Federal Government for large financial transactions. This was especially true for gold certificates from 1865 to 1934. However, the introduction of the electronic money system has made large-scale cash transactions obsolete; when combined with concerns about counterfeiting and the use of cash in unlawful activities such as the illegal drug trade, it is unlikely that the U.S. government will re-issue large denomination currency in the near future. According to the US Department of Treasury:

Fake denominations

Numerous fake large denominations of US currency have been created by various individuals and organizations.

References