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> I love the 500 eur note, and think we should move to a 1000 soon.

The 500 EUR note is being phased out: http://www.wsj.com/articles/500-euro-banknote-being-phased-o...

Personally, I have never seen one. I only saw a 200 EUR note once, the ATM don't give then, which is a pity.

It's pretty similar in the US with $100 notes, actually - they're really not easy to come by or use for legitimate everyday purposes.

ATMs don't issue them, and many shops either won't take them at all, or will take them only after quite a bit of fussing around with their counterfeit detector pen, inspecting them under UV, etc.

The UK has always been unique like that. A lot of it has to do with there only really being 3-5 large banks so checks were always quickly verified and cashed making avoiding large sums of cash easy.

And once people get out of the habit of carrying large quantities of cash around they rarely go back to it...