Not sure why this column didn’t mention the $100,000 bill with its lovely picture of President Wilson. I know that none are currently in circulation but they do still exist. I saw one that was issued in 1934 in a museum collection.
The question was about monetary notes. The largest denomination federal reserve note was $10,000.
The $100,000 bill you saw was a gold certificate.
Samuel Portland Chase was also Lincoln’s Secretary of the Treasury, which is the more likely reason he appears on currency than his role as Supreme Court Justice.
Yes, it was a gold certificate. The question was about monetary notes. Is a gold certificate so out of scope that it doesn’t warrant a mention? I understand the distinction between a gold or silver certificate and a federal reserve note (or at least I think I do) and it seems to me that a gold certificate is a “monetary note.”
I looked at a picture I took of that $100,000 bill and it does say “This certificate is legal tender in the amount thereof in payment of all debts and dues, public and private.” Seems to me that it is monetary. I saw the thing, and it’s a note. Anyhow, the question was specifically about the $10,000 note, so why then mention the $5,000 and $1,000 notes? I still hold the opinion that the answer should include the $100,000 gold certificate.
Here is the link to the original column under discussion: Who’s face is on the $1,000 bill?
Welcome to the SDMB, willhoyt2! Around here, when starting a thread on a Straight Dope column, we generally like to link the url of the column in question. Sometimes, it’s not clear which column is being referenced.
Take a look around and stick around! Lots of fun things to discuss around these parts. 
I think the only reason that Div stopped at the $10,000 bill was that anything larger isn’t a bill, and if you expand beyond that, you might end up talking about all sorts of things that got printed at some point. But the certificate you mention certainly might be worth talking about.
It was Salmon, not Samuel, and Div even sold him a little short - he was Chief Justice: Who’s America’s top judge? - The Straight Dope
Damned egregious error on my part, especially since I read the book on Lincoln, where he figured prominently.
This tells you all you need to know: ■ Little Walter - Dead Presidents - YouTube
A Gold Certificate is a monetary note, just like a Silver Certificate, Federal Reserve Note, United States Note, or other. The $100,000 was probably excepted because, unlike other gold certificates, it was non-circulating; it was strictly used for inter-bank exchange.
Salmon P. Chase also introduced America’s first paper currency, during the Civil War, and was the first one to appear on the $1 bill.
If Cecil had to mention everyone who was ever on a bill, including defunct ones, he would have to mention James Madison, several Greek gods, Martha Washington, Chief Running Antelope of the Hunkpapa Lakotas, Ulysses Grant, and Benjamin Franklin, and that’s just for starters. The ones he mentioned are still in circulation for some purpose, even if for only very limited ones. Or at least were back when the column was written. The column is almost 20 years old, and wire transfers are more certain and secure now than they used to be, and can be done from a handheld device, instead or requiring a phone call. So the bills he does cite may not be being printed nor actively circulated anymore.
The $100 is the largest bill you can still actually get - and has been for some time. The $500 bill was fficially discontinued in 1969 and last printed in 1945, per Wikipedia.
If by “get” you mean in change. You can still buy $500 and $1000 notes from coin dealers.
I believe US bank clerks will accept your $1000 bill, assuming you had one, for deposit, but they are instructed to take them out of circulation, so you definitely are not going to get them from a bank. Not sure if deposited $1000 bills get shredded or not.
Which makes me wonder (this is vaguely related), suppose I have a bunch of old £5 notes. If I walked into a bank in England a few decades from now, would they take them?
The Bank of England honors its notes in perpetuity, but retail banks will all have their own rules. When an old £50 note was withdrawn in 2014, several banks would only accept them for six months afterwards, and only in limited quantities:
They get sent back to the Federal Reserve for destruction.
That’s what they SAY… :dubious:
<cue the conspiracy theory of your choice here> 
I live in Wales. My son married a while ago in the US and I tried to get some larger bills as a wedding present for them as being easier to ship transatlantic that the (family) traditional fine china dinner service. I was told not avalable from a bank, but easily obtained from a numismatic dealer. The best price I could fnd for $500 bill was just over $800 each, so they had to make do with a wad of $100 bills.
I still saw a few when I was a teller in the late 1970s - mostly older folks digging into mattress savings. I had a standing offer of $50 (over face value) for any that came my way, from a local numismatics shop. Found two in my couple of years.
One was a very nice old guy, and I quietly told him to take it directly to the shop for his bonus. The other was a mean old crow, and I took my family out to dinner on my bonus.
I bet Cecil doesn’t get too many such readily Google-able questions these days. But I guess SMILE2BME can be forgiven for not yet knowing about Google in 1998. I wonder if he first tried searching on Lycos or AltaVista?
In fairness, one of the top Google results for “Whose face is on the $1000 bill?” is that column. Maybe at the time it would have just turned up a geocities page covered in “under construction” gifs.