On the other hand it’s hard (and illegal) to create backup copies of cash :)
https://www.frbservices.org/assets/financial-services/cash/f...
https://www.moneyfactory.gov/services/currencyredemption.htm...
(If the government had a sense of humor that would be moneyprinter.gov heh)
What if it's the middle third of the bill that's missing? Does the 51% need to be contiguous? The links suggest that you only need 51% in total, even if the bill was shredded.
Concretely: Could you take 1/3 from opposite ends of two different bills and present the pieces as 2/3 of three different bills to turn two old bills into three new ones? Putting aside the fact that this would be fraud, of course. Someone must have tried it at some point.