MetaChat - This story about a man trying to open a bank account with a $1 million bill

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28 November 2007

This story about a man trying to open a bank account with a $1 million bill leads me to wonder: what's the largest unit of currency, the largest bill, you've ever seen in real life? →[More:]

The largest I myself have ever seen is the $100.

post by: jason's_planet at: 14:45 | 25 comments

The largest bill in the UK is the £50 note. Probably worth around US$1,000,000 at today's exchange rates.

posted by essexjan 28 November | 14:49

How about a $1 million coin?

posted by arse_hat 28 November | 14:52

What's higher than a $100 bill? Don't think I've seen higher.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 28 November | 14:58

Does a ¥10,000 bill count?

posted by deadcowdan 28 November | 14:58

TPS, currently the highest bill printed in the US is the $100, but in the past there were much bigger notes.

posted by deadcowdan 28 November | 15:02

The next step after $100 is $500, with McKinley on it. I'm pretty confident I've never seen one in person. Hell, I'm lucky to see the occasional $50.

posted by box 28 November | 15:04

At an ATM in Acapulco last summer a guy tried to get me to exchange a 10,000 peso note for US$500 or 5,000 pesos. The trouble was the 10,000 peso note was not a "new" peso and effectively worthless.

The largest actual real money note I've had was a 100 euro note. When I had it, it would have been worth US$137, if I held onto it until today it would be worth $148.

The largest US note I've had is a Ben Franklin.

The note with the biggest number on it was the 20,000 colon note from Costa Rica which is worth about US$20.

posted by birdherder 28 November | 15:04

The largest US bill I've seen is $100. In Sweden, when there were 7 kroner to the dollar, I had a 1000 kroner note (about US$140).

posted by muddgirl 28 November | 15:08

Bizarre. I saw this story yesterday and googled US currency denominations because I was curious. I was shocked that $100 is the highest bill currently printed.

posted by mudpuppie 28 November | 15:09

I was shocked that $100 is the highest bill currently printed.

Yeah, it does sound pretty weird but then, most large purchases these days are done by debit or credit cards. Even checks are pretty much obsolete.

posted by jason's_planet 28 November | 15:28

The largest bill in the UK is the £50 note.

They have million pound notes inside the Bank of England.

(and I bet they have lots of other cool stuff too)

posted by cillit bang 28 November | 15:36

One of my favorite Mark Twain stories: The 1,000,000-Pound Bank Note.

posted by Miko 28 November | 15:39

In Hungary I would get 10,000 Forint notes out of the ATMs. It made me feel rich even though they're only worth about $50 USD.

posted by cmonkey 28 November | 15:42

The reason they took the $1,000 dollar bill out of service was basically the drug trade. Supposedly it made it to easy to move large amounts of money around. I remember the coverage when it happened, it was a story that got some play.

posted by King of Prontopia 28 November | 16:03

How often would anyone need a bill larger than $100 for anything other than drug smuggling?

posted by octothorpe 28 November | 16:11

In the UK every few years they'll change one of the banknotes. We just had a new design for the £20. One reason for this is that if people have buried their loot somewhere but end up in prison for a few years, the money's likely to be useless when they get out.

There's always plenty of publicity for several months ahead of a new note being introduced, and people can always still take old notes to the bank to be exchanged, as long as they're not in an amount likely to cause suspicion.

posted by essexjan 28 November | 16:26

from the wikipedia entry that deadcowdan linked to:

The once-popular television game show Let's Make a Deal often featured host Monty Hall giving away $500 and $1000 bills as prizes to contestants

That's pretty cool that he used them as rpizes knowing they were rare.

Isn't there a movie about two guys trying to break out of prison in time to exchange their old stolen dollars for new currency before the deadline?

posted by Slack-a-gogo 28 November | 17:33

They change the notes and you can't use the old ones anymore, essexjan? They change the bills and coins here, but I don't think that means you can't use the old ones anymore. At least, it better not, otherwise, I'm owed at least 13 cents from people who gave me old pennies.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 28 November | 18:09

≡ Click to see image ≡

I got 70 of these bad boys a month last year.

Of course, that's like $750. But still, being paid a fat stack of awesome maroon banknotes with the color scheme of a dentist's office circa 1985, often in a Very Not Obvious Plain Brown Envelope Wink Wink Nudge Nudge, made my job seem much cooler than it was.

They were almost impossible to use anywhere in town, though, unless you bought something big, as very little cost more than $10 or so. Train tickets to Jakarta, a week's worth of groceries, a month of rides on public transit - none of these things came close to 100,000 rupiah in value.

PS: Go to Indonesia. It's awesome.

posted by mdonley 28 November | 18:47

I've seen a 1000 dollar CDN bill I'm sure. My dad was a bank manager at one point, and during one of my visits with him...I'm almost certain I did.

My own personal wacky money story is that for the longest time I had a ATM receipt that showed a withdrawal of $100,000.00 - of course, it was actually about 33.30USD in Mexican pesos, and apparently 1992 ATMs in Mexico didn't print a symbol for pesos, assuming there is one.

Clearly, I am too lazy to google anything tonight.

posted by richat 28 November | 19:10

200 euros

I once had a 1 trillion dollar note, but I gave it to Fidel after the vending machine wouldn't accept it.

posted by qvantamon 28 November | 20:38

I've seen a $500 US bill... my grandfather had one when I was a kid. I think it was his dad's, because he showed it to us, then deposited it in the bank.

posted by kellydamnit 28 November | 22:37

Asking someone if they wanna meet Salmon P. Chase doesn't quite have that ring to it. Like a hot Woodrow Wilson in your pocket, it sounds more like an obscure sex act.

posted by ethylene 28 November | 22:41

$100 US and $50 CDN.

posted by deborah 29 November | 02:20

The largest denomination printed in the Euro zone is a EUR500 note, and I'm pretty sure I've seen one of them (though I could be confusing it with a 50, which always seems a lot of money to me).

posted by altolinguistic 29 November | 05:04

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