When issuing large denoms, why do you think there wasn't a $200 and $2,000 bill?

Okay, this might be a bit of an odd question, but, seeing as our U.S. currency system went by 1,2,5 in denomination number, why do you suppose that, while we had $1, $10, $100, $1,000 and $10,000 bills (and a $100,000 Gold Certificate for banks only) and $5, $50, $500, and $5,000 bills, yet, only $2, and $20 bills, when we should have logically also had $200, and $2,000 bills as well?

So, why do you think the U.S. didn't bother to print $200 and $2,000 bills? Was it just not worth it, since mainly banks used these large denominations and $200 and $2,000 bills were just not needed? Or were there other reasons?

 

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You answered your own question. Only banks and the Federal Reserve used the 500, 1000, 5000, 10,000 bills. Also the super rich like Rockafeller and Carneigie (sorry those may be spelled wrong) seeing that banks couldn't give a cashiers check or wire transfer in those days so if you had the money and needed to move it from Chase Manhattan NY to a bank in San Francisco you didn't want to carry millions in small demoninations or in gold and silver. Especially going out west with all the Jesse James' out there. That's my take on it.

 

Well, the thing was, I just thought $200 bills would make it so you carrt less $100 bills and $2,000 bills would make it so you would carry less $1,000 bills. Even if you were a bank, transporting large sums of money, I figure a $200 and $2,000 bill would be worth it.

Hey, just out of curiousity, how many of you think that the government would have eliminated the $200 bill along with the $500 and up, if we had $200 and $2,000 bills? Or do you think they may have kept the $200 bill?

 

Generally, the smaller denominations are more widely used, so it makes sense to have a wider variety of them. Remember that, though it was never printed, Congress also authorized a $3 note (but not a $30).

Before 1863, when private banks and merchants issued currency, denominations could be practically anything. The $3 denomination wasn't considered unusual then, and even the $4 was seen with some frequency. Denominations like $30 and $40, while they existed, were much less usual.

A bank that issued a lot of $1's would see a real benefit to printing some $2's and $3's, in order to reduce total printing expenses (one $3 can do the work of three $1's). But few banks would have issued enough $100's to make $200's look worthwhile, let alone $300's (it's not worth the cost of engraving a printing plate for a $200 to reduce your need for $100's, if you're hardly printing any $100's to begin with).

So if you look at obsolete notes, the greatest variety of denominations is always at the low end. Sure, you can find a $30 if you search...but with the same amount of searching you can also find a $1.50 or $1.25 or $2.50 or $6, too.

For a more recent example, consider Canada, which for many years went straight from the $100 to the $1000, without even a $500 in between.

As to your last question...if there'd been a $200 bill, it would've been eliminated (or not) based on how much it was used (or not). The denominations that we got rid of were those that saw very little demand. For example, here are the production figures for the New York FRB in the 1934 series:

$5 - 312,704,000
$10 - 583,288,000
$20 - 171,320,000
$50 - 19,248,000
$100 - 18,364,000
$500 - 564,000
$1000 - 507,132
$5000 - 11,520
$10000 - 11,520

You can see the huge factor-of-thirty drop between the $100 and $500 denominations...so that was a natural place to draw the line between what was worth printing and what wasn't. (Actually the gap in usage was even wider than these figures indicate, because the listed quantities of $5 through $100 notes met demand from 1934 to 1950, while the listed quantities of $500+ notes were sufficient to last until 1969--over twice as long!) If there'd been a $200, it's hard to say whether people would've used it like a $100 or (barely) used it like a $500; but that's what would've decided whether it was worth continuing to print.

 

Thanks for the info, Numbers.

I once read a rumor of a Richard Nixon $3 bill, but I knew ot was false, however, if Congress did authorize $3 bills, could the BEP start printing them if the Secretary of the Treasury okays it? Or is that something that would have to be renewed? I remembered talking about $3 bills on rec.collecting.coins, and I wondered if the $3 bill would circulate, had the Treasury gone through with ordering print runs, and one person said that, horse racing tracks would love the $3 bill, because they could up their minimun bet from $2 to $3 (but if they truly did want to up their bets, why not just go to $5?)

 

Hee Hee, nice picture, Jim. :devil:

 

Was the serial number on that billboard actually issued?

Talk about a low one!

 

The authorization was for $3 National Bank Notes back in the 1860s, I'm afraid. The original act in 1863 specified denominations of $5 and higher. A few years later approval was given to add $1, $2, and $3 denominations; but only the $1 and $2 were actually printed.

I believe designs were engraved for a $3 Legal Tender Note around the same time. I don't recall whether that denomination was explicitly authorized, or whether that was a case where the denominations were left to the discretion of the Secretary of the Treasury.... Either way, these $3's were never printed either.

In any case, I don't believe a $3 Federal Reserve Note has ever been contemplated. Even the $1 and $2 FRNs are recent additions to the currency system (1963 and 1976 respectively); prior to that, the FRNs only came in denominations of $5 and higher.

 

Not issued for circulation, but the BEP sometimes exhibits a specimen sheet of these notes, and all twelve notes on that sheet have serial A00000000A. I'm guessing this image was taken from a photo of that sheet....

At the time, it was usual for specimen notes to be printed with all-zero serials. More recently, serials of 12345678 or 23456789 tend to be used on specimen notes.