Should the $500 banknote be revived?

Poll
16 votes (88.88%)
No votes (0%)
1 vote (5.55%)
1 vote (5.55%)

18 members have voted

March 5th, 2013 at 10:33:44 PM permalink
1nickelmiracle
Member since: Mar 5, 2013
Threads: 24
Posts: 623
A friend's wife works at the bank and he told me they if they accept the money and will deduct it from your balance if it turns out counterfeit, but if they give you a counterfeit bill, they will not do anything about it. It's pretty amazing what the secret service will do if your money is destroyed, burned, etc. and will xray or whatever it takes to replace the money. I do know after finding a $20 a few years ago with 60% intact, which is not good enough for replacement by bringing it to a federal reserve bank, because it must be 67% intact.
March 6th, 2013 at 9:47:12 AM permalink
AZDuffman
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 135
Posts: 18136
Quote: 1nickelmiracle
A friend's wife works at the bank and he told me they if they accept the money and will deduct it from your balance if it turns out counterfeit, but if they give you a counterfeit bill, they will not do anything about it. It's pretty amazing what the secret service will do if your money is destroyed, burned, etc. and will xray or whatever it takes to replace the money. I do know after finding a $20 a few years ago with 60% intact, which is not good enough for replacement by bringing it to a federal reserve bank, because it must be 67% intact.


I thought they were good at 51% intact?
The President is a fink.
March 6th, 2013 at 12:23:10 PM permalink
1nickelmiracle
Member since: Mar 5, 2013
Threads: 24
Posts: 623
You are correct. All sites are now saying 51%. I don't know if there was a special rule because I did not have the rest of it and could not prove where it was at the time I investigated.
April 24th, 2013 at 9:56:50 AM permalink
chickenman
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 0
Posts: 368
newmoney.gov announced the new C-Note coming in October.
He's everywhere, he's everywhere...!
April 24th, 2013 at 10:48:36 AM permalink
Pacomartin
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 1068
Posts: 12569
Quote: chickenman
newmoney.gov announced the new C-Note coming in October.


When they made the announcement in April 2010 the new C-Notes had only been in production for about 10 weeks. Presumably they thought they had all the problems worked out in the pre-production stage, but it took a few months until they had to announced that the whole project was completely FUBAR. They never admitted publicly that they had to start over, but I think they did begin from scratch with a new series in October 2011.

Unless they figured out a way to save some of the notes from the older series begun in February 2010, they don't have that many notes printed. The documents obtained by FOIA indicated only 15%,

With smaller denominations people are pretty oblivious to old notes vs new notes. They both can easily circulate for years. But the Benjamin is different. Since most of them circulate overseas, people lose faith in the old notes much quicker and refuse to accept them. There can be a big rush to replace them as quickly as possible. If the production levels are under 50% it can be a problem.

I would have thought that they would wait until the stockpile was at a much higher percentage of the current circulating notes.

The problem will keep getting worse. If they replace the current supply of 8 billion notes, in a decade it will be 15-20 billion notes (if past increases hold true). The next generation will have to be even more sophisticated to stay ahead of counterfeiters. They really should consider adding a $500 note before long.
April 24th, 2013 at 10:57:49 AM permalink
AcesAndEights
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 6
Posts: 351
Quote: Pacomartin
When they made the announcement in April 2010 the new C-Notes had only been in production for about 10 weeks. Presumably they thought they had all the problems worked out in the pre-production stage, but it took a few months until they had to announced that the whole project was completely FUBAR. They never admitted publicly that they had to start over, but I think they did begin from scratch with a new series in October 2011.

Unless they figured out a way to save some of the notes from the older series begun in February 2010, they don't have that many notes printed. The documents obtained by FOIA indicated only 15%,

With smaller denominations people are pretty oblivious to old notes vs new notes. They both can easily circulate for years. But the Benjamin is different. Since most of them circulate overseas, people lose faith in the old notes much quicker and refuse to accept them. There can be a big rush to replace them as quickly as possible. If the production levels are under 50% it can be a problem.

I would have thought that they would wait until the stockpile was at a much higher percentage of the current circulating notes.

I saw this notice and immediately thought of this thread!

At any given time I will have anywhere from 10-50 benjamins in my ad-hoc bankroll. When they start coming out with the new ones, not sure how I'll proceed...trade them all in? Or just make a big deposit and then a withdrawal later? We'll see. Depending on how quickly casinos become suspicious of the old ones, I may just slowly bleed them off in my casino play and accumulate new ones from the cage.
"You think I'm joking." -EvenBob
April 24th, 2013 at 1:21:23 PM permalink
Pacomartin
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 1068
Posts: 12569
Quote: AcesAndEights
Or just make a big deposit and then a withdrawal later? We'll see. Depending on how quickly casinos become suspicious of the old ones, I may just slowly bleed them off in my casino play and accumulate new ones from the cage.


At the current rate of production, it will take over 6 years to replace all the old ones. Presumably they can increase production rate, but they had so many problems in the past few years that it is anyone's guess. The pressure will be huge from foreign users of the banknote since the fear of getting a counterfeit is much higher.

People who hold large amounts of currency that they don't want to explain usually try to turn it into hard goods with lasting value. Before the Euro banknotes went into effect there was a massive boost in the economy particularly in antiques and paintings as people scrambled to get rid of francs and marks. I suspect there will be something similar in the next 6 months.

This is still a massive f-up.

The press release in Jun 2002 said that the color $20 banknote would be released in fall of 2003 (which it was), and the color $50 and $100 would follow in 12-18 months. The color $50 note was released in September 2004. The initial plan was to release the color C-note in October 2005.

1.44 billion notes were produced in the 2009 series from Feb 2010 to Sep 2011. It is not clear if this run is salvageable at all. Initially they issued a press release that said that they were going to salvage the good ones, but with no follow up. I think they were waiting for the anger to subside before destroying them notes entirely.

1.5 billion banknotes were produced in the 2009A series from October 2011 to December 2012. Presumably these are viable and will be released.

It is customary to issue a new series with a new Treasurer. Normally it would be 2009B series, but given the shame, they may call it series 2013.
May 4th, 2013 at 6:54:51 PM permalink
Pacomartin
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 1068
Posts: 12569
A story about being cashless in Sweden (amounts converted to US dollars).

Swedish blog tells a sad story about a man who lost his Visa while on vacation and cancelled it. He found his card 2 minutes later but the bank refused to uncancel his card.

As he was visiting a tiny historic town of roughly 6000 people his bank did not have a branch office there. He went to bigger city about 10 miles away where there was a branch office.

He asks for $1000 so he can pay for the hotel and a train ticket home. He has $24,000 in his bank account. The bank clerk tells him the bank has no cash. He offers a $450 bribe to get $550 in cash. The clerk refuses.

He pawns his watch of $1700 (which he figures is worth almost $5000) to pay his hotel bill. He never gets back to this city to unpawn it.

Banks in Sweden are making record profits by not having any cash in their branch offices. It naturally reduces insurance premiums. But this guy with substantial worth loses a nice watch and goes through all this grief because he made a stupid mistake and needs a few hundred dollars to pay some bills and get home.
May 6th, 2013 at 6:59:03 AM permalink
rdw4potus
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 10
Posts: 147
aren't there travelers checks or bank checks in Sweden? It seems like there would/should/could have been at least a couple ways for this guy to avoid pawning his watch. Or maybe they could invest in those on-the-spot debit card printers that TD bank has. They're pretty cool - basically like a casino club card printer.
I'm not wearing any pants, film at 11
May 6th, 2013 at 7:42:00 AM permalink
Pacomartin
Member since: Oct 24, 2012
Threads: 1068
Posts: 12569
Quote: rdw4potus
aren't there travelers checks or bank checks in Sweden? It seems like there would/should/could have been at least a couple ways for this guy to avoid pawning his watch. Or maybe they could invest in those on-the-spot debit card printers that TD bank has. They're pretty cool - basically like a casino club card printer.


Sweden’s War on Cash Runs Into a Wall — and a Heroic Bank points out that Handelsbanken’s 461 branches will have cash. They intend to make the ability to get cash a centerpiece of their marketing.

I can't understand why there is no ability to create a debit card that can be used one time at an ATM. If a bank is going to save a lot of money on insurance by not having a vault or cash drawers to guard, they should invest in a machine to allow their customers to take cash out of an ATM.

In terms of the larger social issues, Sweden and Denmark are two countries that have a strong motivation to go to electronic currency. They are both part of the European Union, but do not participate in the Monetary Union. It takes very little effort to go in and out of the country, so people must maintain two or three sets of currency.

Norway and Iceland have their own versions of the "crown", but are not part of the EU.