This Day In Market History: US Treasury Discontinues Currency Denominations Greater Than $100

Each day, Benzinga takes a look back at a notable market-related moment that occurred on this date.

What Happened? On July 14, 1969, the U.S. Treasury discontinued all U.S. currency greater than $100.

Where The Market Was: The Dow traded at 843.14 and the S&P 500 traded at 94.5.

What Else Was Going On In The World: In 1969, Neil Armstrong became the first man to set foot on the moon. More than 350,000 rock-n-roll fans gathered for the Woodstock music festival. The average price of a new car was $3,270.

Bye Bye Big Bills: Most Americans are familiar with the seven currency denominations in print today: $1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50 and $100. However, as recently as 1934, the government was printing currencies in much larger denominations.

From 1862 to 1880, the government printed so-called “greenbacks” in denominations of $500, $1,000, $5,000 and even $10,000 bills. In 1934 and 1935, the government printed gold certificate notes in denominations as high as $100,000, the highest-denomination note ever printed in the U.S.

The $100,000 notes were issued only for transactions among Federal Reserve Banks and were never released to the general public.

In July 1969, the Treasury officially discontinued these high-denomination notes above $100, which hadn’t been printed since 1945. However, the high-denomination notes remain legal tender to this day, although most of them are far more valuable to collectors than their face value suggests. For example, $1,000 gold certificate notes printed in 1928 in good to fine condition reportedly sell to collectors for up to $12,000 each.