I mean, the 100 USD bill is NOT the highest valued bill in the world, that belongs to the former B$10000 bill (withdrawn) from Brunei (I’m serious, this exists) which is worth $7874 and yes it’s a single bill, also converting to around £5803 & 6677€ respectively. Like why does this bill even exist when it’s hard to encounter, given that Brunei is a petro-state, it comes as no surprise.
The second highest valued bill is Fr. 1000 ($1278) or £942 & 1084€ which isn’t a surprise for Switzerland to have that due to how expensive it is over there. But, it’s difficult to obtain even in Switzerland and has advanced security features making hard to counterfeit due to its high value (x12 times of $100) but they sell stuff that’s over Fr. 1000 anyway so it makes sense for them to have that.
The reason why they are barely featured in crime movies or mentioned in real crimes relating to counterfeit money is because of their obscurity and the fact that they don’t know both exist (but it does, although either really hard to get your hands on it or ceases to circulate) however still retains their face value. The Swiss Franc is deemed a “safe haven” currency while the US Dollar isn’t.
IIRC, traditionally the most difficult ingredient to acquire for mass-producing counterfeit paper money is convincing paper.
Except the US Treasury makes that part easy: just get US$1 notes (US: bills).
The exact same paper & the exact same dimensions as the US$100 note. Bleach them & reprint with the $100 design and voilà! You’ve turned a $1 note into a $100 one.
Whereas many (if not most) other currencies long ago made sure to print larger value notes on different (larger) dimensions and/or types of paper so that counterfeiters couldn’t do the simple “bleach & reprint” trick.
Compare with UK banknotes where larger value notes have larger dimensions. A £50 note is 146 × 77 mm whereas a £5 is just 125 × 65 mm.
Also, UK banknotes & many others around the world are polymer now, not paper. I don’t think you could do the bleach & reprint technique on polymer notes even if they were the right size.
Old hundreds are also still valid and have few security features. On top of that North Korea at one point had plates for the old hundreds. IIRC they printed them better than the US mint at one point and higher quality gave some away.
That different amounts=different sizes is basically the standard in the world.
way better for blind folks! just seems like a good idea. and that’s with it never having occurred to me to bleach/reprint ones into hundreds 🤯
For the blind folks we also have VIS (visual impaired support) on bank notes and coins in Euroland. You can feel the denomination.