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Fire isn't as easy to verify, but let's say a toddler got into your wallet and put some $100's in your cross-cut shredder. You can send the contents of the shredder to the Bureau of Printing and Engraving for mutilated currency redemption. Their forensic experts will sift through the cuttings and identify every bill little Timmy fed the shredder. Here's a full detail of the mutilated currency redemption: https://www.moneyfactory.gov/s... Documenting the fate of every bill printed is as important as replacing it for the person that lost it.

The USD is made of rag paper.

The USD won't dissolve in pipes even when shredded, it will also survive survive a number of passes through a clothes washing machine (UK Mangle). The money factory tests this . Does this count as money laundering?

What are your printing so much of and, more importantly, why are you printing it?

We are half way done with 2015. I can't remember the last time I had to have something printed.

Wait, do you work for the US Bureau of Printing and Engraving?

By "world ends" I mean the one of the many standard post apocalyptic scenarios of a natural or man made cataclysmic disaster where it doesn't make sense to put resources into keeping high technology printing presses working at the expense of other important infrastructure such as power plants and factories. And since dollar bills rot, the carrying costs are high (they would need to be stored carefully to avoid flooding, etc), and when handled regularly they have an average lifespan of only about 18 months. In a low technology world, precious metals are a pretty good technology for facilitating trade.

That you think it is a "rant", that I point out that the quality of paper-money in the US is too low to allow $1000 bills only shows your ignorance or that standards that the modern world applies to paper money.

If the standards of the "modern world" include accuracy for questions of fact, you aren't living up to them.

Currency Facts

United States currency denominations above $100 are not available from the Department of the Treasury, the Federal Reserve System, or the Bureau of Engraving and Printing. On July 14, 1969, the Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve System announced that currency notes in denominations of $500, $1,000, $5,000, and $10,000 would be discontinued immediately due to lack of use. Although they were issued until 1969, they were last printed in 1945.

The US Treasury could print new $1,000 bills if it wanted to, it wouldn't be a problem.

Interesting that the year the US defeated Germany and Japan in WW2 was the last year they printed $1,000 bills.

HTH, HAND.

$10,000 in fact.

http://moneyfactory.gov/100002greendenom.html

Enjoy.

New money already has an expiration date.

Wrong. From moneyfactory.gov:

Will there be a recall or devaluation of the older-series notes?
There will be no recall or devaluation of the older-series notes, which will be removed from circulation as they wear out. Older worn notes will be replaced with the new notes.

Which is not nearly the same as an expiration date.

I don't think it much matters, since the U.S. mint only produces our coins. You want the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

There is very nearly an absolute zero percent chance of that 40% to be in circulation today. The bill with the longest average lifespan, the $100, only averages 8 years in circulation, which has given it three times its lifespan to be used legitimately and subsequently replaced.

I'd thought that "legal tender for all debts, public and private" meant that anyone is compelled to accept U.S. Currency as payment, if they put a price on something in $USD, but that's not the case. Once someone at a store refused a Susan B. Anthony dollar. I didn't care enough to press the issue but the clerk was justified in saying they didn't need to accept the silver dollar and wouldn't.

At the time I thought they were being an ass and if I really wanted to I could grab a police officer and make them accept it. Nope.

From http://www.moneyfactory.gov/document.cfm/18/110:
"However, there is no Federal statute which mandates that private businesses must accept cash as a form of payment. Private businesses are free to develop their own policies on whether or not to accept cash unless there is a State law which says otherwise."

There you go... nobody needs to accept U.S. Currency if they don't want to. Kind of scary in a way... Is this a precedent? There are lots of good reasons to not accept cash. I'm surprised more people aren't doing this, especially in high exposure situations like convenience stores and gas stations that get robbed all the time. They'd lose some business but I'm not sure if it would outweigh what they lose due to robberies.

-AC

See http://www.moneyfactory.gov/section.cfm/4 for a description. I've never seen one but I believe that it is still legal tender.

Stuff like this happens since the punishment is "not more than $100 or imprisoned not more than six months, or both". Hardly worthwhile prosectuting people when people are out there printing stacks of $100s.

Stuff like this happens since the punishment is "not more than $100 or imprisoned not more than six months, or both". Hardly worthwhile prosectuting people when people are out there printing stacks of $100s.

"Printing counterfeit money is not illegal..."

Actually it is. Despite that, I agree with you, the problem is not the fact that money is being reproduced, but that it is being used illegally. However, there is also a long history of counterfeiting being used to reduce the value of money. With that in mind, it is legal to reproduce a dollar bill, provided that the reproduction is sufficiently larger or smaller. I believe the proportion was 50% or 150% normal size.

The gentleman being investigated by the TSA probably should have included a "This is a illegal reproduction" as text, as a watermark, or something else included in the image. At least then he would of had plausible deniability.

Manufacturing counterfeit United States currency or altering genuine currency to increase its value is a violation of Title 18, Section 471 of the United States Code and is punishable by a fine of up to $5,000, or 15 years imprisonment, or both.

The newest run of $20s are mixed green/peach. They're green on the edges with a peach color-ed center. The newest run of $10 are a straight yellow-ish color, and the newest run of $50s are kind of a mixed pink, yellow, and blue thing.

Unfortunately there's still way too much old money in circulation, but the US is slowly changing over to having the different denominations have different colors.

The U.S. Bureau of Engraving and Printing has a webpage on the currency changes with low-res pictures.

However, while the latest batch of bills does indeed have low-vision features, the bills are all still exactly the same size and texture, making them totally inaccessible to the blind. But the latest bill designs do attempt to make it easier to tell the bills apart.

If only they were actually in wide circulation...

The people involved in such lawsuits are only familiar with Benjamin Franklin, not Benjamin Franklin.

That's by far the best answer in this whole thread, you really deserve a reward. Here's a picture of ten dollars.

Looked at the back of a dollar bill lately?

Go to http://www.moneyfactory.gov/.

Oh, and don't get upset at http://www.usps.com/ and http://www.usmint.com/.

Following up myself...
Well, coming at it from the usmint.GOV site I found it links to moneyfactory.GOV, so they'ev just squatted the site. Too bad they pander to those who get confused with URLs that don't end in .com (or start with www) instead of just bouncing them to the .gov site. Presumably they publicise the .com otherwise we wouldn't have the link in the FA. What's the point in having 200 TLDs if they all alias to .coms?