The Elimination Of High-Denomination Bills

I don't think they would be worth as much as the 1000 dollar bills because they were so much more common but I do agree that they will be worth more than face as is most discontinued US currency.

Popular assertion by law enforcement and anti-cash activists. Have not seen any real proof that this is actually true.

Think of how inconvenient it will be to go to a coin show with $5000 in 50's. This would suck. I hope it fails hard.

Eliminating the $1000 BANKNOTE in Canada was not accompanied by the reduction in cash (which has doubled since the year 2000).
105% Increase in Value of Total banknotes issued from 200 to 2015
-71% CAD $1000
162% CAD $100
144% CAD $50
67% CAD $20
36% CAD $10
60% CAD $5

While the Canadian $1000 was never more than ~ 10% of the cash supply, the 500 Euro banknote was once as high as 36% of the Euro banknotes in circulation by value (although now is closer to 28%). I presume that the ECB has no intention of completely replacing them with smaller notes, but in keeping with Negative Interest Rate policy, they will reduce the cash supply.

The USA will never get rid of it's $100 banknote. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing had massive production problems with the new color Benjamin in their run from March-Sep 2010 (the series 2009). What is less widely known is that the series 2013 was abandoned after making only a few notes from Nov 2014-March 2015. They have returned to the series 2009A which is over 6.37 billion notes so far.

You will never see the Benjamins eliminated.

The first major call to eliminate the $100 banknote was in 1976, only seven years after the US government pledged to destroy all the $500, $1000, $5000 and $10000 that came into their possession. Even calls to limit circulation of Benjamins to a Trillion Dollars would be a radical change in policy. The number of circulating Benjamins passed a Trillion Dollars sometimes in late 2014.

Sweden is actively trying to eliminate cash, altogether. They eliminated their really big denomination (worth well over US$1000) in 1991. Now they only circulate a token number of banknotes worth over $60. The ~$60 banknote has been reduced by 27% in the last 15 months. It is unclear how far the government plans to go in eliminating this denomination. In a few years they may have only denominations ~$25 or less.

Although this forum is for banknotes, the recent decision by Korea to eliminate all coins by 2020 can be seen as a backhanded way to reduce all cash payments.

Think about if you are due to receive $27.94 cents change at a store. Would you take a twenty, a five, two ones and produce some kind of card or smartphone app to take your 94 cents in change, or would you simply put $27.94 on the card or smartphone app.

The 50,000 Won banknote worth US$42.68 will probably remain useful for private transactions where you are not looking for small change. The 10,000 Won banknote will probably remain common, but the 1,000 Won banknote worth 85 cents and the 5,000 Won banknote will shrivel in popularity as people switch to electronic means for small purchases.

One question is how much money does each currency distribute in coins (shown as US dollar equivalent). Japan and Switzerland as two of the most cash intensive countries on the planet also have the most valuable coins.

South Korea has a highly developed economy, but circulates far fewer coins than most developed countries. Perhaps that is why they are the first country to eliminate coins.

USD equiv per capita	Local Currency @ 31 Dec 2015
$369.08	Switzerland	366 francs
$306.48	Japan		36897 yen
$155.97	Singapore	221 dollars
$140.16	USA		140 dollars
$125.92	Hong	Kong	976 dollars
$118.14	Canada		164 dollars
$114.53	Australia	157 dollars
$99.76	Britain	(UK)	67 pounds
$83.54	Euro	Zone	77 euros
$63.26	Sweden		534 crowns
$38.25	S. Korea	44835 won
$18.93	Mexico		326 pesos
$7.93	Turkey		23 lira
$7.75	Russia		565 rubles
$7.46	Brazil		29 real
$2.87	Saudi	Arabia	11 riyal
$0.88	India		5 rupees
$0.39	South	Africa	6 rand

Saudi Arabia has a banknote that is worth little more than a quarter. So they seem to prefer nothing but paper. South Korea is not planning to issue new small denomination paper currency to replace coins. They intend to go to strictly electronic means.

IMHO the United States should stop making all coins except dimes and quarters. All other coins are a waste of money. They should close one of the mints. It is the general policy of the USA and Canada not to demonetize cash, so the other coins will circulate for a while until people start hoarding them.

Do you think any other country will follow S Korea's lead in the next decade? Sweden seems far more interested in eliminating large denomination banknotes, and has actually begun replacing 85% of it's older coins about 8 weeks ago with newer coins that weigh about half as much.

Another way to look at it is what percentage of the banknotes and coins by value is in coins.

USA is unlikely to abolish coins as it is ultra conservative with regard to cash. The fact that they still have the penny, still print the dollar bill, and are not even seriously considering polymer are strong indicators that they would never consider abolishing coins.

Canada has the highest percentage of any major currency of their cash in coins. They are also very unlikely to abolish coins.

0.17% Saudi Arabia
0.35% South Africa
1.31% India
1.92% Hong Kong
2.34% Euro Zone
2.62% Korea
2.64% Brazil
3.16% USA
3.16% Mexico
3.18% Singapore
4.26% Switzerland
4.55% Japan
4.94% Australia
6.30% Britain (UK)
7.20% Canada

Saudi Arabia has about 40 coins per capita circulating, but they are very small monetary value.

The decision to eliminate coins as having monetary value has a lot of technical problems. I am not sure if anyone will follow South Korea. But Hong Kong is my first guess.

Coins get hoarded when they have little purchase power. I doubt you will see one, two, and five dollar coins hoarded in the same amounts as the smallest denominations.

This is just based on my own experience. I often get coin jars from family because they know I like to look through them. There are a lot of cents, a modest number of nickels and dimes, a very small number of quarters, and almost never anything larger.

If a coin is worth something, it will circulate. Cents are worthless. Nickels and dimes are not far behind.