You forgot to list the $100,000 bill, not printed in a while but still legal tender for banks that have them, with Woodrow Wilson on the front.
You can find the answer Here
The mailbag article being referenced is “Whose face is on the $1,000 bill?”
From the treasury page linked to by CalifBoomer, not even the $500 bill is printed anymore? I think that’s ridiculous. What if someone wants to go buy a new TV with cash?
Denomination U.S. Paper Currency Features
$1.00 George Washington (1st U.S. President) on front.
Great Seal of the United States on back.
Download Great Seal Brochure (PDF) format.
$2.00 Thomas Jefferson (3rd U.S. President) on front.
Declaration of Independence on back.
$5.00 Abraham Lincoln (16th U.S. President) on front.
Lincoln Memorial on back.
$10.00 Alexander Hamilton (1st U.S. Treasury Secretary) on front.
U.S. Treasury Building on back.
NOTE: autos on the Back of $10 Notes
$20.00 Andrew Jackson (7th U.S. President) on front.
White House on back.
NOTE: Transit Authority Acceptance of the Redesigned $20 Bill (9/15/98)
$50.00 Ulysses S. Grant (18th U.S. President) on front.
U.S. Capitol on back.
$100.00 Benjamin Franklin on front.
Independence Hall on back.
*$500.00 William McKinley (25th U.S. President) on front. (green seal)
$500 on back.
Has not been printed since 1946.
*$10,000.00 Salmon P. Chase (25th U.S. Treasury Secretary) on
$10,000 on back.
Has not been printed since 1946.
*$100,000.00 Woodrow Wilson (28th U.S. President) on front.
The largest note ever printed by the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.
Printed from December 18, 1934 through January 9, 1935.
Used for transactions between Federal Reserve Banks.
Not circulated among the general public.
- No longer printed and being withdrawn from circulation
From Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations, 9th ed. 1901.
Salmon P. Chase. 1808-1873.
1 ) The Constitution, in all its provisions, looks to an indestructible Union composed of indestructible States.
Decision in Texas v. White, 7 Wallace, 725.
2 ) No more slave States; no slave Territories.
Platform of the Free Soil National Convention, 1848.
3 ) The way to resumption is to resume.
Letter to Horace Greeley, March 17, 1866.
From the Salmon P. Chase website http://www.jsmart.org/jason/salmon/
WHO THE HECK IS SALMON P. CHASE?
Salmon Portland Chase was: An American statesman, chief justice of the United States, secretary of the treasury under Abraham Lincoln, and The Guy On The $10,000 Bill! We’re not sure what all that stuff means, but the $10,000 bill part sure sounds cool! Salmon is undoubtedly one of the greatest figures in America’s history, not only because of his cameo on U.S. currency, but also his greatness-suggestive name.
YEAH, WHAT’S UP WITH THAT NAME? WHY WOULD ANYONE NAME THEIR KID “SALMON?” WERE HIS PARENTS INSANE?
We were sort of wondering that ourselves. Salmon was the eighth child born to his parents, and apparently they ran out of ideas.
SO HOW DID HE GET ON THE $10,000 BILL? WHY AM I NOT ON A MAJOR PIECE OF CURRENCY?
Duh, think about it! He was the secretary of the teasury! If YOU were the Secretary of the Treasury, you could bribe…I mean, earn your way on to a major denomination also. Vent your frustrations at The U.S. Treasury Department’s Website
OKAY, SO WHEN WAS HE BORN AND ALL THAT?
Salmon first swam into this world on January 13, 1808 in Cornish, New Hampshire.
WHEN DID HE DIE?
Your “respectable” source of information would say he passed on to that Spawning Ground In The Sky on May 7, 1873. However, we here at the Salmon P. Chase Fan Club know better than that.
ARE YOU SUGGESTING HE’S STILL ALIVE??
Yes, exactly. Salmon is now 191 years old.
THAT’S THE BIGGEST LOAD OF…
We understand your skepticism. Most people find it extremely hard to believe that even someone as almighty as Salmon could live that long. We saw him at Burger King the other day.
WHAT ABOUT HIS DEATH??
Purely a media fabrication. For further proof, check out the Salmon P. Chase Fan Club’s newsletter, The Big Fish, and see the Salmon P. Chase Picture Gallery.
OKAY OKAY WHATEVER. SO WHAT ELSE DID HE DO?
He presided over the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson.
COOL!! IF I BECAME THE SECRETARY OF THE TREASURY, COULD I IMPEACH A PRESIDENT?
Well…you could have a small part in it.
WHAT WAS THAT URL FOR THE TREASURY DEPT. AGAIN?
Uhh…let’s move on.
WAS HE ALSO A FOUNDER OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY?
I’m glad you asked! As a matter of fact, he was! An interesting note in history is that in 1872, Salmon seeked the DEMOCRATIC nomination…several years after he had helped found the Republican party.
WHAT’S UP WITH THAT?
He was getting old and senile.
The original, incomplete (no $100,000 bill), mailbag answer: http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/m1000.html
large bills (more than $100) were
withdrawn from circulation in the early 1970s
as part of the war on drugs.
however, they still are considered legal tender.
they are not available at banks, but
can be purchased from rare coin dealers.
of course, you will pay a premium over face value, depending on condition & [scarcity of] variety.
So, does the Mailbag Answer get changed to reflect the errors and ommissions spotted above? Or do you have to write Cecil and wait another 5 years for it to rise to the top of his bag? I.e., How does that stuff get into the permanent infobase?
Not to be too picky, evernewbie, but what errors? lamerino’s post added a little more detail, but I didn’t see any errors. And the Mailbag column included the $1000 and $5000 dollar bills.
The only omission I saw was about Salmon P. Chase being Secretary of the Treasury in addition to Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. The following info about Chase was interesting, but not pertinent to the article.
Did I miss something?
(BTW, Cecil didn’t write that column - one of the SD Science Staff wrote it. I’m sure he/she is keeping a close eye on this thread! Both Cecil and the SD staff seem willing to correct any misinformation if you can provide proof.)
There was this really dumb Sylvester Stallone movie called Cliffhanger, in which a Very Big Deal was made out of the fact that these four suitcases of money that John Lithgow was going to steal contained just this denomination, but that it was basically non-negotiable in the U.S. I never did figure out WHY he wanted to steal it, if it was non-negotiable. I mean, here’s this guy, he can afford helicopters and jets and can suborn a Treasury Agent, why is he wasting his time and considerable criminal genius with folding money? I don’t get it. Ah, well, high finance…
See? Watching movies can be very educational–not! :rolleyes:
what errors?
The Mailbox answer said:
Here’s the list for the REALLY big bills:
$500 William McKinley
$1,000 Grover Cleveland
$5,000 James Madison
$10,000 Salmon P. Chase
That’s not the list for the REALLY big bills, is it? Missing the biggest bill, isn’t it?
Okay, I gotcha, evernewbie. How could I not notice $100,000 was missing?
I suppose you can guess the state of my checkbook. 
Maybe he was a collector? It’s been a while since I saw the movie, so I’m not sure this makes sense, but it might have been just for his own personal pride or sense of satisfaction. Then again, he might have found a way to use them in the long term.
Getting into the Fed system and laundering them seems a little dubious–doesn’t the Fed keep records of this stuff? In fact, these days they probably don’t need bills for those transactions, though relying on IOU’s and computer transfers is more open to fraud. Oh! Maybe having the bills would allow a crooked Federal Reserve employee to better cook the books? And Lithgow’s character knew somebody, or figured he would find one, maybe twenty years down the line?
But Lithgow’s character would have had to steal the notes from the Fed, and they would know he’d taken them, and…
OK, maybe he figured they would at least fool a sucker. A very high value white elephant.
LOL! Thanks for the nifty guesses, FG, but the movie was a total comic book, and all your nifty guesses are about 100 IQ points above the movie’s level. They may have explained at some point exactly how he planned to launder the moolah, but with Sly Stallone doing the human fly thing every couple of minutes, not to mention the girl unzipping his trousers when he wasn’t actually hanging upside down over the Grand Canyon or something, well, I guess the explanation just kind of got lost in the shuffle. Gee, too bad, huh? And it was real important, too. Vital to the storyline…
:rolleyes:
