Imagine for a second that you are holding a single
piece of paper in your hand. It's crisp, it's
brightly colored, and well, it is worth over
$2 .2 million. Which is just a staggering, almost
unimaginable amount of money to hold physically.
Right. Exactly. Now imagine that you take that
piece of paper, you walk down to your local bank
to deposit it, and instead of, you know, handing
you a lollipop and a deposit slip, the teller
just quietly locks the doors. Oh, wow. Yeah,
and they immediately call the federal authorities
because if the police catch you with this specific
piece of paper, you are actually committing a
federal crime just by holding it. It really does
sound like the setup to some kind of Hollywood
heist movie. It totally does. But it's actually
a very real and honestly very strange chapter
of American financial history. I mean, we are
so used to the money in our wallets being perfectly
normal, everyday stuff. Yeah, just completely
mundane. Exactly. We think of money as something
scaled to our daily lives, right? Yeah. Something
meant to buy a cup of coffee or pay a repair
bill, or maybe if you were feeling the pinch
of inflation lately, stretch to cover a week
of groceries. Oh, definitely feeling that pinch.
Right. But we almost never think about the physical
mechanisms of money when it scales up to the
level of moving these mind -boggling nation -state
amounts. Welcome to the Deep Dive. Today we're
taking you on a mission to explore the ultimate
forbidden treasure. We really are. We're taking
you back to the 1930s to look at the striking
design, the really intense historical crisis,
and the frankly bizarre legal status of the United
States $100 ,000 bill. The big one. The absolute
highest denomination U .S. currency ever printed.
And our sources today give us a perfectly clear
factual look at this incredibly strange object
and it is such a remarkable story because it
completely forces you to rethink what money actually
is like when you get to a piece of paper with
a $100 ,000 face value you are no longer talking
about pocket change or even consumer spending
no definitely not you're looking at a highly
specialized heavy -duty instrument one that was
engineered for a very specific very desperate
moment in time. OK, let's unpack this, because
before we can really understand the why of it
all, we really need to picture the what. Right,
the physical object itself. Exactly. Imagine
you're holding this behemoth. The physical dimensions
are 157 millimeters wide by 66 millimeters high.
So it's a substantial, very tangible object.
It is. And right on the front, the obverse of
the bill, there is this highly formal vignette
portrait. of President Woodrow Wilson. Yeah,
and the engraving work on that portrait of Woodrow
Wilson, that was done by George Frederick Cummings
Smilley. Oh, really? Yeah. And it is an incredibly
detailed, serious piece of portraiture. I mean,
it looks exactly like what you would expect from
the highest echelons of the Bureau of Engraving
and Printing. It has a lot of bravitas. It definitely
demands respect. It even has Washington DC printed
right there in a really bold font. But you know,
the text on this bill is what really stops you
in your tracks. Oh, absolutely. Because it doesn't
just say $100 ,000 and leave it at that. It spells
out a very specific, legally binding promise.
Right. It reads, and I'm quoting here, this is
to certify that there is on deposit in the Treasury
of the United States of America. And then it
says, $100 ,000 in gold payable to bearer on
demand as authorized by law. We really need to
pause on that phrasing because it is the absolute
key to understanding this entire object. The
payable to bearer part. Exactly, payable to bearer
on demand. We need to clearly define the difference
between the cash you use today and what this
bill actually was. Okay, break that down for
us. So the cash in your wallet today, that's
a Federal Reserve note. greenback right it's
backed by the faith and credit of the US government
it's essentially just a promise but this $100
,000 bill was strictly a gold certificate so
it's not just a promise it's more like a claim
ticket precisely think of it like a coat check
ticket at a well a very exclusive club I like
that analogy right when you hand the attendant
your cope they give you a little numbered piece
of cardboard Yeah. Now, that cardboard isn't
the code itself, but it is a legally binding
receipt that proves you own a specific physical
coat hanging in their back room. Oh, wow. A gold
certificate functioned the exact same way. That
piece of paper was a literal warehouse receipt
for an unimaginable amount of actual physical
gold sitting in a government vault. Which is
just wild to think about. It really is. And it
goes even further because right above the treasury
seal, it includes the text, This certificate
is legal tender in the amount thereof in payment
of all debts and dues public and private. Right.
So it is officially declaring itself to be valid
money. In no uncertain terms. But here's the
visual irony that I just cannot get over. OK,
let's hear it. So it is officially a gold certificate,
right? It represents a literal fortune in gold
bullion. You would really think it would look
the part. You would expect it to be glistening
in metallic ink, looking incredibly regal and
weighty. Like a pirate's treasure map or something.
Exactly. But it actually exhibits very little
gold ink on the front. Just a tiny bit, yeah.
Just the treasury seal and two serial numbers
are printed in gold. The rest is very subdued,
very formal. But then you flip it over. Oh, the
reverse of the bill. That is where the design
just goes completely off the rails. It is genuinely
jarring. You flip it over to the reverse, and
there is this massive, unavoidable number, 500
,000, centered right in front of a US dollar
sign. Unmissable. And instead of using gold ink
to signify the gold backing, the entire back
is printed in this blinding bright orange ink.
It's so bright. And it's not just a flat orange
either. It has these sun -like rays radiating
out from the center. Right. it sounds less like
serious government currency and more like a glowing,
mythical artifact or, you know, if we're being
completely honest, a bright orange construction
cone. What's fascinating here is that stark,
almost absurd visual contrast. Yeah. On one hand,
you have the ultimate representation of serious
unimaginable wealth backed by a literal mountain
of gold. Right. And on the other hand, the physical
design is almost flashy. It's loud. Those radiating
orange rays make it look urgent and utilitarian
rather than regal. Utilitarian is the perfect
word for it. I mean, you don't design a multimillion
dollar bill to look like a traffic cone unless
you are in an absolute panic. Right. You're trying
to solve a very specific, very urgent problem,
which I think brings us to the history. Yes,
let's get into that. Why did the government suddenly
wake up in the mid 1930s and decide they needed
to print a massive bright orange Woodrow Wilson
bill? Well, the answer lies entirely in the intense
economic panic of that era. The Great Depression.
Exactly. This bill was commissioned in 1933 and
then physically printed between 1934 and 1935.
So we are talking about the absolute rock bottom
of the Great Depression. A time when the entire
financial system literally felt like it was crumbling
into dust. It really did. Yeah. And the bill
was ordered directly by President Franklin D.
Roosevelt. FDR himself. Right. At that time,
The government was facing a massive systemic
crisis. The American public was hoarding gold.
Oh, wow. Yeah. In an atmosphere of just total
economic terror, everyday people simply didn't
trust the banks. Which makes sense. Of course.
They had watched banks fail and wipe out their
life savings overnight. They didn't trust paper
money anymore. Right. They wanted the tangible,
unchangeable security of physical gold coins
and gold bullion. They were literally burying
it in their backyards and stuffing it into their
mattresses. Which, like you said, makes perfect
sense on an individual level. If you feel like
the world is ending, you hold onto the shiny
stuff, you hold onto the hard assets. Individual
panic usually does make sense to the individual.
Yeah. But from a macroeconomic perspective, the
government believed that this widespread hoarding
of gold was a fatal threat to the country. Because
it was actively slowing down economic regrowth.
Exactly. Think of an economy like a circulatory
system. OK. Money and assets are the blood. They
need to move and flow for the body to survive.
Right, circulation. So if everyone buries their
gold in the backyard, it acts like a tourniquet.
The velocity of money drops to zero, and the
economic engine just seizes up completely. Wow.
Roosevelt takes sweeping, unprecedented action.
He had to. He signs Executive Order 6102, which
was then ratified by the United States Congress
in 1934. And this order was incredibly aggressive.
Oh, it was sweeping. It flat out prohibited the
hoarding of gold certificates, and it was accompanied
by a strict ban on the public hoarding of gold
bullion and gold coins as well. Right. The government
essentially made it illegal for regular Americans
to hold on to their own gold. It was a drastic
measure for a very drastic time. It really was.
OK, wait, wait. I have to push back on the logic
here. Because I am trying to wrap my head around
this. If the entire problem was that regular,
everyday people were hoarding gold. How on earth
does printing a massive bright orange $100 ,000
gold certificate fix that? Right. It seems counterintuitive.
Especially if the public isn't even allowed to
have it. Was the government just stepping in
to become the ultimate hoarder themselves? Well,
if we connect this to the bigger picture, it
actually makes a kind of ruthless macroeconomic
sense. Okay, how so? The government needed to
pull that physical gold out of private hands
and consolidate it in the treasury. Right. And
why? Because under the gold standard, the banking
system needed that gold to legally back the broader
currency and stabilize the whole system. Oh,
I see. They weren't hoarding it just to sit on
it like a dragon on a pile of treasure. They
were pooling it to restart that frozen economic
engine we talked about. Where does the $100 ,000
bill fit into that engine? That's the part I
don't get. Let's go back to our coat check analogy
for a second. OK, the coat check. The government
forced everyone to hand over their coats, their
physical gold. Now the treasury has tons of gold
in its vaults, but the Federal Reserve Banks,
which actually manage the money supply, still
need a way to account for that monumental wealth
on their balance sheets. So they can start lending
money again. Exactly, to get the economy moving.
Right. But they needed a way to prove who had
what. Ah, they needed massive claim tickets.
You hit the nail on the head. To move that astronomical
amount of wealth around the highest levels of
banking system, they needed a tool. Right. Because
you can't just put a million dollars in physical
gold coins onto a truck every time two Federal
Reserve banks need to settle an account with
each other. No, of course not. That's way too
heavy. Too heavy, too slow, and way too dangerous.
So they created this high -level macroeconomic
tool disguised as paper money. Wow. It was used
purely to transfer monumental sums between the
vaults of the Federal Reserve banks. So it was
an inter -bank ledger system, essentially, just
printed on paper. Exactly. That perfectly explains
why they designed it the way they did. It didn't
need to look pretty or regal for the public.
It just needed to be highly visible and undeniably
official for the bank clerks. Like a giant orange
receipt. Right. Which I think... brings us to
the secret life of this bizarre piece of paper.
It does. Because it was an exclusive tool for
the highest levels of government rather than
the public, its life cycle was highly secretive
and heavily regulated. Extremely regulated. It
never circulated publicly. Not a single one of
these ever went into a civilian's wallet or a
grocery store cash register. Never. Never. It
was used strictly for those interbank gold transactions.
Think of them like the massive rectangular plaques
they use in the high stakes VIP rooms of a casino.
Oh, that's a great way to picture it. Right.
Those plaques might say $100 ,000 on them, but
they only have value to the specific players
at that specific table. Right. If you take that
casino plaque to a grocery store, it is completely
worthless. Exactly. The one hundred thousand
dollar bill was essentially the government's
high stakes poker chip. And because its use case
was so incredibly narrow, the Bureau of Engraving
and Printing didn't actually produce very many
of them, right? No, they didn't. They only printed
about forty two thousand of these bills. Forty
two thousand. That might sound like a lot of
paper to some people until you remember that
we print millions of single dollar bills every
single day. Exactly, it's a tiny print run. But
let's talk about the sheer density of wealth
represented by those 42 ,000 pieces of paper.
Oh, the inflation adjustment. Yes, because $100
,000 in 1934 is obviously a fortune, but when
you adjust it for inflation to understand what
it means to you and me today, it becomes genuinely
staggering. It really does. A single one of these
bills from the 1934 printing would be worth roughly
$2 ,296 ,000 in 2023. Wow. Or if you look at
the 1935 printing, it adjusts to about $2 ,246
,000. So you're looking at roughly $2 .2 million
held on one single piece of paper. Measuring
just 157 by 66 millimeters. The physical density
of that wealth is almost impossible to comprehend.
Here's where it gets really interesting. This
is the heist movie scenario we talked about right
at the start of the deep dive. Right, the attic
scenario. Exactly. Imagine you are cleaning out
a grandparent's attic. You open an old dusty
trunk, and tucked inside a book, you find a bright
orange bill with Woodrow Wilson staring back
at you. It would be quite a shock. You check
the denomination. 100 ,000. You realize you've
essentially just found a $2 .2 million lottery
ticket sitting in your attic. But you can't spend
it. No, you can't cash it in. In fact, it is
literally a federal crime to even possess it.
That is the ultimate delicious irony of this
entire object. Possession of the $100 ,000 bill
by private individuals is strictly entirely illegal.
Which is crazy. It is. This is partially due
to its massive denomination. But more importantly,
it goes all the way back to those specific 1934
regulations against hoarding gold certificates.
It is the ultimate forbidden treasure. really
is. It's a paradox written in ink because it
literally says legal tender right there on the
obverse right above the treasury seal. It promises
in writing to pay the bearer on demand. And yet
if you are the bearer you are breaking the law.
The government essentially created a physical
manifestation of supreme wealth that is legally
toxic for a citizen to touch. Legally toxic.
That's a great way to put it. And because of
its illegality. And because the mechanics of
the gold standard eventually changed, which made
these interbank tools obsolete, most of those
original 42 ,000 bills did not survive. Right.
Our sources mentioned that many were systematically
destroyed in the years following their commission.
Yes. You just have to picture government workers
tossing millions and millions of dollars of these
bright orange certificates into incinerators
once the specific need for them had passed. It
is a stunning visual, isn't it? It really is.
And the remaining few that actually escaped the
incinerator. They are securely in the possession
of the United States federal government. So no
private collectors have them? None. Outside of
the federal government itself, there is only
one legal use for these bills today, and that
is for educational purposes. meaning you can
only see them in museums. Exactly. If you want
to lay eyes on one of these mythical orange artifacts
without risking a stint in federal prison, you
have to go look at them behind reinforced glass.
Very thick glass, I'm sure. Both the Smithsonian
Institution and the Federal Reserve System own
them for public viewing. Oh, really? Yeah. For
example, if you visit the National Museum of
American History, they have specific 1934 issues
on display. You can actually go look at serial
number A 0000. Wow. It is quite something to
stand in front of a museum case and look at serial
number one. of a $100 ,000 bill. I can only imagine.
You are looking directly at a relic of a time
when the government was forced to physically
move giant pieces of paper just to account for
the movement of actual gold. So what does this
all mean? Good question. We started today by
talking about the completely normal cash in your
wallet, the modern pinch of inflation, and the
simple curiosity about the biggest bill out there.
I think the next time you tap your phone at a
register to buy a coffee or, you know, you send
a digital payment to a friend and watch the funds
instantly transfer through the ether, you should
think about this deep dive. Think about the incredible,
almost absurd physical lengths the government
had to go to in 1934. Yes. Printing 42 ,000 massive,
bright orange, highly illegal certificates. Yeah.
carefully engraving them with Woodrow Wilson's
portrait entirely just to be able to move wealth
between their own bank vaults. It's wild. It
really highlights just how frictionless and abstract
money has become today compared to the very physical,
very urgent, and very heavy nature of money during
the Great Depression. It was never pocket change.
It was a heavy -duty macroeconomic tool born
from sheer economic desperation, disguised as
paper money, and locked away from the public
forever. But, you know, there's one final provocative
thought that I really cannot shake, drawn straight
from the history we have been exploring today.
Oh, what's that? Well, the records show that
the $100 ,000 bill was not a standalone anomaly.
It was actually part of a much larger 1934 gold
certificate series. Ah, right. It had siblings.
Exactly. That 1934 series also included $100,
$1 ,000, and $10 ,000 notes. Oh, wow. All gold
certificates, all printed in that exact same
window of time. I see exactly where you're going
with this. Right. If the $100 ,000 behemoth was
strictly reserved for federal reserve banks,
never circulated publicly, and remains totally,
strictly illegal for a private citizen to own
today. Yeah. What happened to all those smaller
denominations from that exact same 1934 series?
Oh, that is a fascinating mystery. Right. Were
average citizens allowed to keep the 100, the
1 ,000, or the $10 ,000 gold certificates? Exactly.
Or did they face the exact same illegal forbidden
fate as their massive orange sibling? Were people
criminalized for holding a $100 gold certificate
from that year? It's a great question. That is
a brilliant unresolved thread and definitely
something for you to look up and explore on your
own after we wrap up here today. Thank you so
much for joining us on this deep dive into the
most valuable and perhaps the most illegal piece
of paper the United States ever produced. Keep
wondering, keep exploring, and we will catch
you on the next deep dive.