I know, a fairly childish question to some but I've been really curious about this lately. I know there are some countries out there with insanely inflated currencies like Zimbabwe but they also make huge number bills. Are there any countries out there that have high inflation with small denomination bills? I'm talking thousands of paper bills for like $100 usd. I've seen photos of Zimbabwean kids holding stacks in baskets but can't find stacks like that on eBay in America.
That's a fair question to ask. Even with the ridiculously high denominations printed, Zimbabwe might still be high on the list. I believe Poland was also a victim of hyper-inflation. Might want to look into their denominations. You can probably go to a money exchange (if you are near an International airport) and have them answer your question.
You could try to look for post WWI German notes as well. They had some serious Hyper-inflation at that point in their history. In fact it was so bad, the workers would get paid twice a day and the men would have their wives take the pay and buy food as quickly as they could before prices climbed higher. There were even stories of people finding it cheaper to burn piles of currency than it was to buy firewood. I don't know how much of those notes have survived but you could look into it.
Sometimes companies give away real notes as advertising premiums, although I have not seen this recently. Notes from Indonesia, Bulgaria, Mozambique, Brazil, Peru, Paraguay and Yugoslavia have been used in this way, so huge numbers must have been available for very little money. The advertisers must have got these notes from somewhere, by the ton. You could consider Chinese Hell bank notes, printed to burned at funerals to ensure the dead had money in the afterlife.
You can look here at: http://www.xe.com/currency/btn-bhutanese-ngultrum Bhutanese Ngultrums go for about 67 to the dollar. There are 1 Ngultrum notes. These are current exchange rates so maybe you can find a source for exchanging physical currency. That was just one example I found looking through that site. I found other countries' currency that had higher exchange rates to the USD, but, the few I looked at only produced high denominational notes. I think if you join this site for 799.00usd/yearly your question could be answered in mere minutes if not seconds.
I collect and deal with banknotes, though I am NOT a dealer, and here are some of the nation's where their paper currencies doesn't worth much, and can be aquired relatively cheap and easy, esp. from auctions like E-Bay and others, even in UNC conditions. -Most of the Asian currencies except South Korea(North Korea, while they are colorful and all, worths nothing pretty much), Japan, Singapore, and some Taiwanese. Older notes from China (more recent ones are a crap) -Poland, Yugoslavia, Croatia (except the ones BEFORE they were part of Yugoslavia), Bulgaria, lower denomination Albania. -Most African notes (yeah, they are colorful and some of the prettiest in design), aren't worth much. If you want the high value notes, I would recommend seaching for UNC US, Canadian, or European nations BEFORE the Euro came into picture, they will be worth something on a long run. If you own an Old Asian notes from China, South Korea, Japan that dates back 1960 or earlier in great condition, it should worth something as well. Well, that's my 2 cents.
