Welcome to the deep dive. Imagine you are cleaning
out a relative's dusty old attic, right? Oh man,
I love good attic discovery. Right. You're moving
aside boxes of like moth -eaten clothes, old
photo albums, and way in the back, tucked under
a floorboard, you find this heavy antique lock
box. Okay, the classic hidden treasure. Exactly.
You pry it open, half expecting to find, you
know, stacks of gold bars or some forgotten Or
just some really old tax returns. Yeah, usually.
But instead, lying there at the bottom, there
is just a single, crisp piece of paper. Just
one piece of paper. Just one. It looks like standard
currency, but the number printed across it makes
your eyes widen. It's a $100 ,000 bill. Oh, wow.
Instantly. I mean, your mind starts racing. Oh,
absolutely. You start calculating what that's
worth today, adjusting for inflation. You're
thinking about buying a private island or maybe
just paying off a mortgage in one fell swoop.
The tactile feel of that paper in your hand,
it would feel like holding a winning lottery
ticket from another century. Because you'd be
holding a piece of United States currency that,
in today's money, is worth roughly $2 .2 million.
That is wild. A single piece of paper worth over
$2 million. It feels like the ultimate antique
road show discovery. But there is a massive twist
here. There's always a twist. If you take that
beautiful piece of paper down to your local bank
to cash it in, you aren't going to walk out a
millionaire. You are very likely going to walk
out in handcuffs. handcuffs. Handcuffs for a
real bill. Yeah. Today we're unpacking a Wikipedia
article you sent us about the most expensive,
highly illegal piece of paper in American history,
the United States $100 ,000 bill. It is such
a fascinating topic. It really is. Our mission
today is to figure out why the U .S. government
ever felt the need to print a piece of paper
with 100 grand written on it, how it functioned
during a time of, well, nationwide panic, and
what this bizarre artifact tells us about the
underlying mechanics of money itself. Okay, let's
this. Yeah, to really grasp why a piece of paper
can get you arrested a century after it was printed,
we had to travel back to the early 1930s. Right.
Because, you know, governments do not just invent
hundred thousand dollar bills for the fun of
it or to like show off their engraving skills.
Definitely not. They do it when the financial
system is on the absolute brink of collapse.
And in 1933, The United States was staring into
the abyss. The Great Depression. Exactly. The
depression was in full devastating swing. But
it wasn't just the stock market crash anymore.
The actual banking system was disintegrating.
Thousands of banks were failing. And when people
see their neighbors losing their life savings
because the local bank locked its doors, panic
sets in. Totally natural reaction. Yeah, the
everyday citizen completely loses faith in paper
money and promissory notes. They want something
they can hold in their hand that has intrinsic
value. They turn to gold, which creates this
vicious cycle. Citizens were actively pulling
whatever wealth they had left out of the banking
system, converting it into physical gold. So
coins, bullion, gold certificates and hiding
it like literally hiding it. Yeah, literally.
People were renting safe deposit boxes, stuffing
it under floorboards, literally burying it in
their backyards. They were terrified of waking
up to find their paper money was just, you know,
worthless. Hoarding gold during a depression
is like freezing the blood supply of an economy.
That's a great way to put it. Because if everyone
hides their wealth under the mattress, the money
stops moving and the system dies. You need that
capital flowing through banks so they can give
out loans, so businesses can build factories,
so employers can pay workers. If the gold is
buried in the yard, the economy flatlines. What's
fascinating here is the sheer audacity of the
government's intervention. It was huge. I mean,
when Franklin D. Roosevelt took office in 1933,
he looked at this frozen economy and realized
the gold standard was acting as a straight jacket.
He couldn't just launch a polite public relations
campaign asking people to please deposit their
gold back into their checking accounts. Please,
pretty please? Right, that wouldn't work. He
had to use a hammer. FDR signed Executive Order
6102, which was later ratified by Congress in
1934. The government essentially demanded that
all citizens surrender their monetary gold. Surrender
it, just like that. They made it illegal for
everyday Americans to hold onto substantial amounts
of gold bullion or coins. Which is mind -blowing
today. It really is. You are legally required
to take your family's gold down to the Federal
Reserve or a designated bank and exchange it
for paper money at a set rate of about $20 .67
an ounce. And if you didn't? The penalty for
refusing was severe, massive fines, or even prison
time. It was a monumental psychological shock
to the public. The government was fundamentally
changing the legal relationship between citizens
and their wealth. They were violently forcing
the economy back into motion by centralizing
the entire country's gold supply under the control
of the Federal Reserve and the Treasury. And
that massive unprecedented centralization is
the exact catalyst for the $100 ,000 bill. Because
suddenly the Federal Reserve banks were flush
with physical gold, mountains of it turned in
by citizens and local banks from all across the
country. And consolidating all that physical
metal creates a logistical nightmare. Oh, absolutely.
Even if all the gold is sitting in government
vaults, you still have to balance the massive
accounting ledgers between the different branches
of the Federal Reserve. Right. So if the Federal
Reserve Bank of New York owed the Federal Reserve
Bank of Chicago $10 million to settle their regional
accounts. The legal framework of the gold standard
at the time dictated that this debt had to be
settled with actual gold. Wait, hold on. I'm
stuck on something. Here's where it gets really
interesting. OK, what is it? If I owe you money
today, I just Venmo you. Or a bank wires the
funds digitally. If the New York Fed owed the
Chicago Fed money in 1934 and they have all this
surrendered gold sitting in vaults, why print
paper at all? Why not just update a master ledger
in Washington, D .C.? Just cross out a number
in New York's column and add it to Chicago's.
Well, because the law didn't allow for purely
digital or conceptual money like that yet. Oh,
OK. The legal framework of the gold standard,
even as FDR was modifying it, strictly required
a tangible claim. A simple ledger entry wasn't
enough. Their receiving bank needed a legally
binding warehouse receipt proving that a specific
physical amount of gold belonged to them. So
they needed a physical object. Exactly. The alternative
was moving the actual metal. And moving physical
gold is a terrifying prospect. I mean, let's
think about the weight for a second. At roughly
$35 an ounce, which is what the government revalued
it to shortly after collecting it, $100 ,000
in gold weighs about 178 pounds. Wow. So if New
York needs to settle a $10 million debt with
Chicago, that is nearly nine tons of solid gold.
Nine tons. Yeah, you can't just put that in mailbag.
You need heavily armored trains, dozens of armed
guards, and massive security logistics just to
settle an accounting imbalance. Which is incredibly
inefficient and dangerous. And this is exactly
why the $100 ,000 bill was commissioned in 1933
and printed in 1934 and 1935. It was a workaround.
Basically, yeah. It was engineered strictly for
gold transactions between federal reserve banks.
It was never meant to be folded up in a citizen's
wallet. It was a high -level logistical tool.
The sources highlight a really crucial detail
about the wording on this paper, too. Unlike
the typical US dollars we have in our wallets
today, this was never issued as a Federal Reserve
note. It wasn't a standard greenback. It was
explicitly labeled a gold certificate. If we
connect this to the bigger picture, a Federal
Reserve note is essentially a promissory note
relying on the faith and credit of the government.
Right. But a gold certificate is literally a
title deed. Whoever holds that certificate owns
that specific pile of gold sitting in the treasury
vault. So this bill was basically a 1930s analog
version of a massive digital bank transfer, saving
the Federal Reserve from constantly lugging heavy
gold bars from city to city. That's a great analogy.
Instead of loading nine tons of gold onto a train,
a clerk deep inside a treasury vault could simply
hand over a stack of 100 pieces of paper to another
clerk representing a different reserve branch.
The gold physically stays put. but the legal
ownership of it instantly transfers. It was an
ingenious bridge between the physical reality
of the gold standard and the speed required for
modern finance to function during a recovery.
It makes a lot of sense when you put it that
way. Yeah. And this bill was part of a larger
1934 series of gold certificates that also included
100, 1000 and $10 ,000 notes. But the 100 ,000
was the absolute pinnacle of this closed loop
system. Knowing that this was essentially an
internal banking tool, you know, a glorified
interoffice memo for the Federal Reserve, you
might expect it to look like a boring receipt.
Right. Just some black typewriter text. Exactly.
Just plain Treasury letterhead. But the Bureau
of Engraving and Printing took a completely different
approach. They crafted a highly specific, visually
striking physical object. Physically, it's unassuming
at first glance. Like, it's the exact same size
as the $1 bills we use today, 157 millimeters
wide by 66 millimeters high. Right, standard
size. But the design is where it completely sets
itself apart from anything else the Treasury
has ever produced. The front of the bill, the
obverse, features a vignette portrait of the
28th president, Woodrow Wilson. The engraving
was done by an artist named George Frederick
Cummings Smilley, and it is beautifully detailed.
Gorgeous. But the choice of Wilson is what catches
my eye. Looking at the sources outline of his
life, it points out that under his new freedom
domestic policies, Woodrow Wilson was the president
who actually signed the Federal Reserve Act into
law back in 1913. It's an incredibly fitting
historical tribute. I mean, the ultimate highest
denomination bank transfer note designed to save
the Federal Reserve features the very president
who brought the Federal Reserve system into existence.
That's like an inside nod to their own origins.
Yeah. And it's not just a portrait. The text
underneath is basically a legal contract. It
reads, quote, This is to certify that there is
on deposit in the Treasury of the United States
of America. $100 ,000 in gold payable to bearer
on demand as authorized by law. Very official.
Very. It proudly states Washington, D .C. and
includes the standard text about being legal
tender. But for a gold certificate that represents
such an incomprehensible amount of pure gold,
the front of the bill actually has a very little
gold ink on it. Yeah, just the treasury seal
and two serial numbers. The rest is standard
black ink. Exactly. But the real visual shock
hits you when you flip the bill over to the Oh,
the back is wild. You flip it over and you do
not see anything resembling gold. You see aggressive,
vivid orange ink. It's so bright. It features
this massive number, 100 ,000, layered directly
in front of a giant U .S. dollar sign. And radiating
outward from the center of those numbers are
these bright orange rays, almost like sunbeams.
Sunbeams on money. Right. It looks graphic like
something out of a vintage comic book or a bold
art deco poster rather than the most serious
financial instrument in the country. The aesthetic
irony of the design is truly something to sit
with. You have a certificate meant to represent
unparalleled amounts of dense physical pure gold.
And yet the designers completely abandoned gold
ink or a traditional greenback design on the
reverse. They just went full orange. They relied
on loud orange ink and radiating sunbeams to
convey its It's almost as if they needed a visual
metaphor loud enough to match the sheer volume
of wealth the paper represented. It's a beautifully
strange piece of art. So the government printed
these beautifully engraved orange -rayed masterpieces
to move millions between banks during a crisis.
The source tells us that about 42 ,000 of these
bills were printed in total. Wow, 42 ,000. Yeah.
That is $4 .2 billion in 1934 money just sitting
in stacks of paper in government vaults. That
brings us to the ultimate mystery of this deep
dive. Where are they now? That is the million
dollar question. Well, two million dollar question.
Right. If they printed 42 ,000 of these Art Deco
masterpieces, why can't the hypothetical person
who found one in their attic actually keep it?
Well, of those 42 ,000 original bills, the vast
majority were actively destroyed by the government
in the decades following their commission. Burned.
Yeah. As secure telecommunications improved,
the Federal Reserve developed reliable wire transfer
systems. The need to physically hand over paper
certificates to balance ledgers between Federal
Reserve branches became obsolete. Much like how
mobile banking apps have made paper checks nearly
obsolete for us today. Exactly. They didn't just
void them. They physically burned billions of
dollars in certificates. That is wild to think
about. Just throwing billions into a fire. It
really is. The ones that miraculously survived
that purge are held very tightly by the federal
government. The Federal Reserve System holds
some and the Smithsonian Institution holds others.
And outside of the federal government? Outside
of the government, the law dictates these bills
can only be used for educational purposes, like
being displayed behind thick glass in a museum.
So no private collections? None. If you visit
the National Museum of American History today,
you can actually see a couple of them. They have
the bill. with the serial number A00000000001A,
the very first one ever printed, and another
with the serial number A000000109A sitting right
there on display. And when you look at them,
you're looking at an asset that adjusted for
inflation from 1934 to today holds an estimated
value of roughly $2 .2 million. Which is staggering.
It is staggering to stand in front of a small
piece of paper no bigger than the dollar in your
pocket and realize you're looking at over $2
million in purchasing power. But I have to ask
about the legal side of this. So what does this
all mean? Today, we don't back our money with
gold anymore. We use a fiat currency system.
Let's define that quickly for context. Sure.
A fiat currency system means our money has value
simply because the government decrees it does
and because we all collectively agree to use
it. Right. There isn't a chunk of metal sitting
in a vault backing up the dollars in your bank
account. The dollar has value because the US
economy is strong and people trust it. Exactly
my point. So if we use a fiat system now and
the gold standard is completely gone, these specific
certificates are functionally obsolete. Sure.
They don't command physical gold anymore. So
why is the government still so strict about making
it a crime for a private citizen or a rare currency
collector to own one? What's the harm in letting
a collector buy one at auction? This raises an
important question about the long memory of the
Treasury and really the lasting legal weight
of executive orders. OK, the illegality. isn't
really about the monetary value of the paper
anymore. It's permanently tied to the specific,
drastic regulations of FDR's 1934 era. Because
they were never issued for public circulation
in the first place. Precisely. When Executive
Order 6102 and the subsequent Gold Reserve Act
of 1934 were put into place, they drew a hard,
impenetrable line between government -held monetary
gold and private property. Oh, I see. Because
these specific notes were created exclusively
under that legal framework as internal government
receipts, they were born classified as government
property. They never entered the public domain.
There was never a legal mechanism for a private
citizen to acquire one. So if a private citizen
somehow has one today, say, an old bank clerk
slipped one into his pocket in 1935 and it ended
up in that attic lockbox in the eyes of the law,
it is essentially stolen government property.
Exactly. It doesn't matter how much time has
passed or that the gold standard has been dead
for decades. The law remembers why the object
was created, even if the economy was created
for has completely disappeared. It's a lingering
ghost of 1930s emergency law. Yeah. You can legally
own a piece of the meteorite, you can buy ancient
Roman coins, but you cannot legally own a 1934
orange piece of paper with Woodrow Wilson's face
on it. That is just incredible. Let's take a
moment to look back at the incredible journey
we've just taken today. We started in the desperate,
panicking days of the Great Depression, where
terrified people were literally burying gold
in their yards, freezing the economy in its tracks.
A literal freeze. Yeah. And we watched FDR use
the heavy hand of the law to force that gold
into government vaults, which created a massive
nine ton per settlement logistical nightmare
for the banks. Which birthed a hyper specific,
ingenious tool, a hundred thousand dollar gold
certificate. Right. A closed loop analog wire
transfer never meant for our eyes, adorned with
bright orange sunbeams and the face of the man
who created the central bank. And finally, we
tracked those surviving bills to the museum displays
of today, where they sit as multimillion dollar
artifacts of a bygone era, forever illegal to
slip into your wallet. It really is a remarkable
story. I want to take a second to address you,
our listener, directly. Thank you so much for
pointing us toward this Wikipedia article. It
is the perfect example of what we love to do
on this deep dive. It really is. It proves that
even a seemingly simple, obsolete piece of paper
can hold a massive amount of history, logistical
problem solving, and legal drama within its fibers.
But I think there's one final, larger perspective
we should take away from this. Definitely. What
is it? The $100 ,000 bill served as a fascinating
physical bridge. It stood right in the middle
of monetary evolution. It connected an old economy
backed by heavy, physical, unmovable gold to
the entirely digital, invisible wire transfers
we rely on so completely today. It was the missing
link. Right. And looking at that evolution makes
you wonder, what physical objects do we currently
use every single day to represent our wealth
or to access our value that decades from now
will seem just as absurd as an orange paper representing
nine tons of gold? Wow, that's a great point.
What piece of modern technology will be locked
away in a museum behind glass, completely illegal
or impossible to possess, simply because the
very concept of how we store value will have
fundamentally transformed all over again? It
will be our plastic credit cards, a hardware
crypto wallet. It really makes you think about
that attic again. Maybe it isn't the paper or
the gold in the lockbox that holds the true value.
Maybe the value is just the story we all agree
to tell about it, right up until the law steps
in and changes the script.