Million Dollar Display

Quote: pacomartin

The UK introduced the modern £50 banknote in 1981, ten years after decimalization. At the time a production of US $100 banknotes was about 4 per capita. Now after three decades the UK is still circulating roughly 3 £50 banknotes per capita, while the USA is doing production runs of over sixty $100 banknotes per capita.

I assume a cash-in-hand builder is someone who is trying to avoid income tax.

I'd assume so, and also trying to avoid the VAT (sales tax) man at her Majesty's Customs and Excise. Dealt with plenty of them when I worked part time in a builders merchant. Wads of the notes would come out of the back pocket to pay for a pallet or 5 of bricks, bags of cements and sand.

That was the old 50 quid note. Bookmakers and punters seem to handle more than their fair share of fifties too.

Quote: thecesspit

That was the old 50 quid note. Bookmakers and punters seem to handle more than their fair share of fifties too.

The US government actually never formally withdraws banknotes like the UK does. They simply vanish on their own, either destroyed or into collections. I understand in the UK there is a two year period where they both circulate, after that you have to go to a bank with the old notes.

I was under the impression the notes would change in a few months again
1981 note (back)

1994 note (back)

2011 note concept only (back)

(i) UK Notes
Technically the discussion has been with the "Bank of England" notes - and yes the £50 is the largest. Also it seems the £20 is the one most often forged. There are also banks in Northern Ireland, Isle of Man and three in Scotland that issue notes. Thus there are also Scottish £100 notes and £1 notes. Also we have £1 and £2 coins in a similar manner to Eur2 and Eur1 coins.
(As an aside for visitors, English notes are accepted everywhere, whereas the others aren't. I remember seeing an agent in Prague who gave different rates for Scottish notes, as he couldn't sell them.)
(ii) 500 Notes
There has been discussion about Eur500 notes since, as has been mentioned, they are very convenient for criminals. I have also seen them used (there are Eur200 as well) in European casinos - usually with the punter having a wad of them. Some time ago I read (see http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1277892/Britain-axes-500-euro-note-organised-crime-fears.html) they're not always accepted in the UK. Fortunately, or perhaps not!, I've never won enough to own one.

Why not develop a $200 US note?

Quote: ChampagneFireball

Why not develop a $200 US note?

It's not different enough to warrant all that effort (production and counterfeiting operations and so forth). In the Eurozone the €200 note is the least used of all 7 banknotes.

The €100 note is circulating at about 5 per capita, the €500 note is at about 2 per capita, the €50 note is at about 17 per capita (workhorse bill), however the €200 note is circulating at 1/2 per capita.

I like that photo of a car door stuffed with €500 notes.


The €500 notes in circulation when they were new and shrinkwrapped would still fill 450 pallets.

Quote: Nareed

You'd think then the government would love it more, yes?
But cost is only one issue. There are other ways to make a cheaper coin, up to making it out of plastic. The reason for the persistence of the penny is that enough people will want exact change
Lately plastic bills are all the rage. In mexico the 20 and 50 peso notes are made of plastic now. Allegedly they last longer and resist abuse better. In practice I see a lot more torn plastic than paper notes.
An even better medium for printing bank notes would be silk. But the cost would be too high and counterfeiting would be easier. you can get silk easily, you can't get cotton-linen paper at all.

Agree that plastic notes can be torn, but our old NZ paper notes WERE paper, not like the US cotton. I should add that the Australian plastic notes do seem to lie flat, so maybe NZ is using a cheaper material.

Regarding the possibility of $200 or $500 notes - in any western country with a $100 max - I think it's highly unlikely. I reckon all governments want to reduce cash usage wherever possible. In NZ you will generally only see $100 bills in casinos, even the $50 is quite rare on the street. All the ATMs give out $20 only (sometimes $10), so you have to request $100 bills at a bank or at the casino cage. A lot of retailers will only reluctantly accept them too [ungrateful sods], as if they are a hassle to change, or some sort of security risk. And "tall poppy syndrome" is alive and well in NZ - if you pull out a $100 bill at a social gathering, people to comment that you're a big shot or a gangster. The $20 note is our comfort zone!
In Hong Kong where they have HK$500 and HK$1000 bills I also saw a lot of smaller market shops that won't accept these larger denominations at all.
Japan is surprisingly cash-based - having been there several times I have never seen a local pay any way other than cash, be it for a drink or a hotel room or whatever. You also feel quite safe carrying a stack 10,000 (or 1,0000 as they say there) bills. Never see grubby old notes either.

Quote: algle

I reckon all governments want to reduce cash usage wherever possible.

Smaller, highly developed countries prefer to minimize cash usage if possible. Like New Zealand, Iceland, and Hungary. Slovenia was the first Eastern European country to dump their currency and adopt the Euro. To a large extant cash is not as important in Canada and the United Kingdom.

The dollar and the Euro are in competition to get as many people around the world to use their banknotes. It is essentially wildly profitable export. Even the newest $100 banknotes only cost 12 cents to make. In the third world people have to do an huge amount of work to earn an American $100 bill, which they hide it under their bed as a desperate hedge against their own unstable currency. Combine that with illegal activity and foreign reserves in the world's national banks, and you are talking about our biggest export. It's actually bigger than airplanes, which used to be #1.

Quote: algle

In NZ you will generally only see $100 bills in casinos, even the $50 is quite rare on the street. All the ATMs give out $20 only (sometimes $10), so you have to request $100 bills at a bank or at the casino cage. A lot of retailers will only reluctantly accept them too [ungrateful sods], as if they are a hassle to change, or some sort of security risk. And "tall poppy syndrome" is alive and well in NZ - if you pull out a $100 bill at a social gathering, people to comment that you're a big shot or a gangster. The $20 note is our comfort zone!

Your national bank website says there are 14 million $100 banknotes, and 20 million $50 banknotes in circulation. That's a pretty small amount for over 4 million people. The UK is circulating 185 million 50 pound notes, which is similar ratio of about 3 notes per capita.


This article on polymer notes in New Zealand says that in addition to longer life, the counterfeiting problem has been reduced to almost nothing, because of the difficulty of an amateur making a counterfeit using laser copiers and other simple minded technology.

Quote: algle

In Hong Kong where they have HK$500 and HK$1000 bills I also saw a lot of smaller market shops that won't accept these larger denominations at all.
Japan is surprisingly cash-based - having been there several times I have never seen a local pay any way other than cash, be it for a drink or a hotel room or whatever. You also feel quite safe carrying a stack 10,000 (or 1,0000 as they say there) bills. Never see grubby old notes either.

I grew up thinking that Japan was the most high-tech country in the planet. And when I went there I thought Mexico was more advanced. The most mundane things are not computerized.

No nation on the planet has more cash in circulation per capita than Japan. Switzerland comes close, but the Swiss have single banknotes worth more than US$1000 which they certainly don't walk around with. They just don't trust banks. Japan is one country that desperately needs an equivalent bill to US$500 or US$1000 since they have wads of cash.

Japan, South Korea, China, and probably other Asian nations all have the same problem. Their biggest banknote is too small for their culture with it's lack of viable electronic payments. However, in all cases the countries have huge supplies of their biggest banknote. They all also have problems with counterfeiting. Once they create larger banknotes, it will be much easier to diffuse the existing counterfeits since they will be given as change.

Plus it is very difficult to update the bills with new security features. Japan is circulating literally billions of 10,000 Yen notes. To replace them is a major expense.

Suppose the New Zealand government discovers credible NZ$100 counterfeits. With only 14 million banknotes, they could call them all in to replace them with NZ$50 notes. By the end of the week they would have at least 3/4 of them turned in. There might be a temporary cash crunch until they can print more $50 banknotes, but it wouldn't be serious. In any case a serious counterfeiting ring would have a near impossible time moving their notes, since they are so rare.

That's what the UK had to do in the late 1940's. The counterfeits made by the Jewish concentration camp prisoners were so good, that they had to call in all their notes above 5 pounds.

Quote: FleaStiff

I believe its known as a Michigan bankroll. High denomination bills on the outside for their "flash" value and dollar bills on the inside.

Michigan BR, never heard that one. But I will say, the very first job I had out of HS was in a factory, and the day after payday, the 'brothers' would come in flashing a horse choking roll of money, that had a $20 on the outside and all $1's on the inside. I'm not making it up, or fudging in the least bit. They would strut around and flash these wad's at each other, never thinking we all made exactly the same amount of money. The rest of us didn't call it a MI BR, we called it something else entirely. It was 1966, use your imagination..

Quote: EvenBob

Michigan BR, never heard that one.

Although the movie How To Marry A Millionaire with Betty Grable and Marilyn Monroe is a classic, the ending always seemed especially corny. All the guy does is pull out a huge wad of cash and his new bride faints. But the natural reaction to seeing a wad of cash from someone you believe is kidding you is to think it is a Michigan Bankroll.

Quote: iamthepush

The Bossier City Horse Shoe has a million dollar wall, all hundreds.

Is that 40 by 250? I can't tell. That would be 8.7' by 128.8'.

Quote: Wizard

It is much more expensive making "paper" dollars, considering their much shorter lifespan than coins. The cost in fuel of lugging them around I think is negligible. We overweight Americans could use the additional exercise to carry around more metal in our pockets.

In the early '80s when most of the developed world was planning on getting rid of their dollar equivalent banknote and replaced it with a coin, the USA began negotiations to build a second facility to print banknotes in Fort Worth, TX. The standard argument about having a second facility applies (i.e. what about a war, plague, or other emergency). Construction on the Fort Worth facility started in 1987 and dedication was on April 26, 1991. The Loonie coin began production on June 30, 1987 in Canada, and the CA$1 banknote ceased production two years later. The banknotes have all long since been destroyed or vanished into collections.

But since the $1 banknote in the USA represents roughly half the production requirements, the pressure would be intense to close one of the facilities if we replaced it with a coin. Sooner or later the nuclear war and plague scenario wears a little thin. I think it costs in the neighborhood of $300 million per year to run each facility. You can be assured that each facility prints a few of each bill so that no one gets labelled the dollar bill facility.

So I would say that the $1 banknote is well protected. However, if this debacle with the new $100 banknote is not resolved, then some congressman may want somebodies head on a platter. They could close down one of the facilities, and just produce the coin in large quantities.

The logical thing would be to find some private secure printing company and give them the technology and a contract to print the $1 banknote until enough coins are made. Then you close down one of the government facilities. You keep the private contract alive somehow printing small quantities of $2 banknotes. Then if a terrorist blows up the government facility, you have the contractor print old fashioned (pre-1996) banknotes for long enough to rebuild the government facility. If you can build it fast enough, you just let the notes get a little more tattered than normal and don't issue emergency notes. Since it is very unlikely to happen, it would just be for extreme measures.

Quote: algle

Agree that plastic notes can be torn,

What I don't understand is why. If you try to tear a paper note, it's easy. A plastic note can't be torn with bare hands. Yet of all the notes I see, and I see a lot because I handle petty cash at the office, torn plastic notes, taped or not, outnumber torn paper notes at least three to one.

Quote:

but our old NZ paper notes WERE paper, not like the US cotton.

I find that hard to believe. Even dirt poor countries don't use cellulose paper, which seems to be what you mean.

Quote:

I should add that the Australian plastic notes do seem to lie flat, so maybe NZ is using a cheaper material.

New notes, paper or plastic, lie flat. Over time they bend, crinkle and crumple. Plastic notes especially, since they are of lower denominations and get more use.

Quote:

Regarding the possibility of $200 or $500 notes - in any western country with a $100 max - I think it's highly unlikely. I reckon all governments want to reduce cash usage wherever possible.

Mexico's largest note now is the 1,000 peso bill. It's worth about $82 US. It's rare to see one. Most small stores won't take them claiming they have no change.