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Comment by noduerme | Hacker News Reader

Very interesting. It's probably because fewer people take the time to counterfeit $50s, $10s or $2s than anything else. What about $100 bills? In Argentina, if you have an older $100 bill, no one will take it. And apparently there's a roaring trade in fake $20s in Costa Rica, which I only learned at a casino there recently when I took USD directly out of an ATM and had it inspected by a pit boss in the same establishment. It's ironic, because if I were someone with an interest in counterfeiting, I'd focus on forging Pesos or Colones or something no one looks at before I'd take a stab at USD.

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In Tanzania specifically, the $100s were fine. The weird pricing seemed driven partly by perception. It was usually street vendors who would say $1 bills were worth 2000 shillings (~84 cents), while the larger banknotes were fine. Other vendors would charge X shillings or Y dollars, and when you did the calculation, it would be about 70 cents per dollar. I had crisp $1 bills and asked them why they discounted $1 bills so much? And some responded they were easy to counterfeit. There was also something about banks not taking pre-2009 (if I remember correctly) dollars, and sometimes they may not be bothered to check the dates.

But even at exchanges, the bid for $50s was beating the ask for $1s, I was thinking there's a trivial arbitrage opportunity haha.

Or there's an efficient market and when you mail yourself 9,999 $1 bills and take them to the bank you find out 30% are counterfeit.

Or street vendors see an American and immediately mark up their price by 30%. If it were me I'd walk away.

I’ve had USD rejected both for being too new and for being too old in various corners of the earth - different cultures seem to want their currency differently aged.

And the only places you can change a €500 note are outside of Europe.

what?

Nobody will accept a €500 note in Europe - not even banks - you have to get it changed at a central bank, and you can expect a lot of questions, like “what kind of drugs did you sell to get this?”

An easier option if you have one, is going to a forex office in Vietnam or somewhere - and even then they may not take it.

I was lumbered with a couple of them for a few years, until I dumped them in Uruguay.

Yeah, it's truly strange because up until around 2012, I used to pay my rent with €500 notes when I lived in Spain. Just go down to the bank and get them. Then there was some sort of crackdown on drug smuggling and no one would touch them. Barbaric, rather fascistic or communist way of dealing with a social problem, since of course this means normal people can't pay rent in cash anymore without a ton of bills, and the only real purpose is to track so much more of the casual, unofficial economy. Drug dealers do find ways around.

That's weird. Can't think of a legal basis that would allow the bank to refuse it. They have machines that verify it's not counterfeit after all. People regularly pay for used cars with cash here, and I've never heard of anyone refusing a 500€ note.

I gave a bonus tip to a tour guide in one of these countries.

I'd brought USD notes from Europe to spend and as an emergency fund. They were all brand new (sequential numbers) $50 notes, just what my bank gave me.

At the end of the trip, I swapped about $300 of old notes the tour staff had for $300 of new notes. This included a very slightly damaged $100 note which the tour guide said had been a tip, which he was unable to use because of the damage.

It's been a while since I've tried to change money but even as recently as 10 years ago, money changers in a lot of places wouldn't accept even slightly wrinkled bills or bills older than a specific series. Every time before a trip I'd have to go to the bank and ask the teller for notes with series > X and not wrinkled/showing signs of being folded.

It is more an artifact of being cut off from the US mint/banking system. For a domestic US bank they can swap any worn currency for new stuff for free.

So as US currency degrades over time it slightly loses inter exchangeability in the third world.

Uncirculated notes feel weird and also tend to stick together. Thankfully, it doesn't take much handling for them to wear in enough to not stick.

I did have a food stand on the boardwalk in New Jersey once refuse a worn bill, which was wild. I think it was a $1 and it may have been slightly torn near a corner. I'd expect that if using USD outside the US, but I guess Jersey is different.

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