Large denominations of United States currency
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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.
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At one time, however, it also included five larger denominations. 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. The 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These gold certificates (of denominations $100, $1,000, $10,000, and $100,000) were issued after the gold standard was repealed and gold was compulsorily purchased by presidential order of Franklin Roosevelt on March 9, 1933 (see United States Executive Order 6102), and thus were used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. 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).
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.[1] 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 website, "The present denominations of our currency in production are $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100....Neither the Department of the Treasury nor the Federal Reserve System has any plans to change the denominations in use today."[2]
[edit] Fake denominations
Numerous fake large denominations of US currency have been created by various individuals and organizations.
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For more details on this topic, see Fake denominations of United States currency.
[edit] In popular culture
- The once popular television game show Let's Make a Deal often featured host Monty Hall giving away $500 and $1,000 bills as prizes to contestants. Hall would often hold up the bills in question for the camera to take a zoom in shot for the home viewers.
- In the 1953 novel The Long Goodbye, the detective Philip Marlowe is sent a "portrait of Madison" (i.e. a $5,000 bill) by his former friend Terry Lennox.
- In the 1988 film Midnight Run, the accountant Jonathan Mardukas ("the Duke") (Charles Grodin) shows bounty hunter Jack Walsh (Robert De Niro) a money belt filled with $1,000 dollar bills containing "in the neighborhood of three hundred thousand dollars".
- In the 1989 film The Mighty Quinn, the lead character uncovers a secret plan by the U.S. President to fund a revolution in Latin America with stacks of discontinued $10,000 bills, money taken from the U.S. Treasury that will not be missed.
- In the film Lethal Weapon 2, the drug-dealer villains are shown shipping their proceeds home to South Africa in the form of $1,000 bills.
[edit] References
- ^ US BEP large banknote images, The Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
- ^ U.S. Treasury - FAQs: Denominations of Currency
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