Comments on the proposed $250 bill?

"We, along with other nations, decided to eliminate high denomination banknotes in order to combat money laundering."

I do not believe this to be the reason for the elimination.

I can just see me going thru the Scanners at The Airport with $250.00 Bills' TSA Agents have enough curiosity when I have Bricks of $1.00 Bill's still shrinked wrapped ( $1000.00 Value )

@sellitstore said:
I have a few. We shouldn't fear discussing them here. And the politics of George Washington shouldn't be off limits here, should it?

We'll need to change several laws if this is going to happen.

Yes, there's the prohibition of a living person appearing on our currency-that would need to be changed. But why was this law created back in the 1860s in the first place. It was the public outrage of the Sec of the Treasury daring to put his own image on a 50 cent note. George Washington was the first President to offer an opinion on the idea of the head of state depicted on a coin. He prohibited it. That was what European kings did- not what the president of a democracy should do. Washington set this precedent back in the late 1700s. That's the symbolic significance of such a change.

Nobody (that I've heard) has mentioned the fact that this denomination would need to be authorized by law. We, along with other nations, decided to eliminate high denomination banknotes in order to combat money laundering. Would a new high denomination facilitate it?

Anyone else have some insights or thoughts or comments on mine?

To whatever extent money launderers are now moving $100 bills, they will welcome the opportunity to move 2.5X that value with the same effort, or with only 40% of the expense. Probably with exactly the same risk of loss and success. Of course, it’s moot if they have trouble getting their hands on the $250 notes, which will probably be the case. Bottom line is that I don’t think a $250 note will move anyone’s needle very far.

I would like to see it, although I would much rather a non-current president on principle. I could use larger notes than $100.

Physical money is slowly losing favor in the market. There are times where I need to run around with $5000 in cash, and wish I could just use a credit card. But those times are few and far between (Tucson Gem Show & coin shows, basically)

@sellitstore said:

@MrBear said:
Physical money is slowly losing favor in the market. There are times where I need to run around with $5000 in cash, and wish I could just use a credit card. But those times are few and far between (Tucson Gem Show & coin shows, basically)

Yes, but I wonder if that trend might be slowing or could even backslide a bit. Some countries (and venues in the U.S.) have gone cashless but others are clinging tightly to their cash, mostly for privacy reasons. The U.S. and Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Japan seem to be among the countries reluctant to give up cash totally.

Yeah, that's true. I was commenting while I was eating lunch (how I usually read this forum) so tapping out comments on my iPad is a bit of a pain. But as others have mentioned, large bills help facilitate a variety of crimes. And when I do these events where I'm walking around with thousands of dollars in cash on me, I'm usually a LITTLE nervous. Not so much about getting mugged (I'm 6'2") but just about "something" happening where I misplace/lose the money.

I just got back from a trip to Southern Africa. Zimbabwe uses US dollars as currency. They don't like anything bigger than a $20 bill because of counterfeit concerns. They are ALSO super picky about the quality of the bills. If you have even a TINY tear in one, they won't accept it.

@sellitstore said:

Yes, there's the prohibition of a living person appearing on our currency-that would need to be changed. But why was this law created back in the 1860s in the first place. It was the public outrage of the Sec of the Treasury daring to put his own image on a 50 cent note.

Let's correct the record here. The act prohibiting a living person appearing on US currency was a response to Spencer Clark putting his own portrait on the 5 cent Fractional instead of William Clark's (of Lewis and Clark fame) portrait. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spencer_M._Clark

At the time the 50 cent Fractional with Frances Spinner's portrait was already incirculation; it was allowed to remain in circulation. The 15 cent Fractional with portraits of Sherman and Grant had been designed and Specimens were printed and released. But the note itself had not been and production halted. The only way to obtain a copy of the Sherman and Grant is to obtain a Specimen.

The other law that would need to change is the Federal Reserve Act because, as others above have pointed out, "$250" is not a denomination currently permitted to be printed by the Federal Reserve under the Act. Specifically, 12 USC § 418 will need to have ", $250" added to the denomination list.

Of course, they could bypass this requirement by having the new notes not be issued by the Federal Reserve. Thus they would not be "Federal Reserve Notes" (green seal). Perhaps making them red seal (United States Notes, issued directly by Treasury) would work. Of course, given the whole hullabaloo that previous generations of Congress faced in lifting the cap on the issue of red seal notes and that no new red seal notes have been issued since 1971, this path would be even more irregular than the issue of $250 notes in the first place.

@Tookybandit said:
However, a new $250 bill would be great to potentially create new paper money collectors, like the state quarter >program helped create brand new coin collectors.

I would rather have maybe a limited edition release of the regular Large Denomination Bills that were discontinued (pulled out of circulation) in 1969.

Either with original portraits or maybe with Reagan...or even a few of our recent presidents (JFK, Bush, Clinton, etc.). Might get people to collect them....and save them...and they'd FINALLY have some $$$ saved with a definite, non-fluctuating face value.

If you limit it to 4-5 presidents, maybe stay consistent and stick with dead guys only: Reagan...JFK....Bush Sr....Nixon.....LBJ. Everybody before 1960 had or was considered for a bill or coin.