John in Kansas told us:

I know that I share the name of a person who appears on the $10,000 US bill (and so does at least one other 'catter, I believe). That definitely does not mean I've ever seen one first hand.

I really have seen one first hand. What's more, I held it in my own hot little hands. But no, I didn't own it.

Some years ago I was acquainted with the man who was the vice-president of a big Indianapolis bank who had charge of the vaults. I had done his wife a service at the time. The bank was doing a sort of outreach program, and asked bank officers to invite local businessmen and the like whom they might know to have lunch with them in the Executive Lunch Room. By way of thanking me for the favor to his wife, he invited me for lunch. Let me tell you, that Executive Lunch Room had some good food, in really posh surroundings!

After lunch he asked me if I'd like a tour of the bank's vaults. Of course I said yes. So down to the bank basement, and down a long corridor, with a guard station. He explained who I was,and we passed it by.   Now to another guard station, this time like an air lock, with two gates, and a guard window between. He waved to the guard, who pressed a button to open the first door. When it closed behind us, we BOTH had to get out our picture ID! And this was the VP in charge of the vaults, well known by sight to every guard in the place, I'm sure, but he had to show his ID too. And of course identify who I was, and that he was giving me a personal tour. Then the guard electrically opened the second door.

So we went in. There were a number of rooms, but there's only two I remember. One was a big room with high speed coin and bill counting and packaging machines, maybe 15 of them, most busily racketing away, turning out bundles of counted bills and rolls of coins. The noise was intense. After we'd been there, we went to the REAL vault. The huge, multi-ton door stood open, but there were two barred gates inside, electrically operated of course, and between them was a uniformed guard. Once inside the first gate again both of us had to show picture ID! Then the guard opened the inner gate, and stepped in with us.

There were forklift pallets and pallets and pallets full of rolls of coin and plastic wrapped megastacks of bundles of money. The word "awesome" is vastly overused these days, but I have to say that the sight was truly awesome.

Now, getting to the point. The gate guard, who had come with us, took us to another gate, which he opened with a key on his belt. We now got into a smaller room, whose walls were lined with lock boxes. No, these were not safe-deposit boxes for the public. My friend the VP said to the guard, "The tens". The guard opened a box with about a 4x6 door, and stood back. The VP reached in, and got out a $10,000 bill. "Would you like to hold it? You probably will never see another one, let alone touch one." Sure, of course. I held it for about 15 seconds, whereupon it was locked away again with its fellows.

He said, "These don't circulate. They spend their lives in this room, and are only gotten out for special occasions, like if the City is making a public ceremony of paying for land for an auditorium or the like, so the newspapers can take a picture of the Mayor handing a big payment in cash to the seller." As I recall it, he explained that on such occasions, unlike what you might expect, they are not shipped by armored car. Instead, some odd amount of time before the ceremony the payment is hand carried by an employee of the bank (probably a guard, in civilian clothes), in a briefcase chained to his waist. It seems that armored cars attract too much attention. The police know about the shipment, and unobtrusively keep the messenger in close sight every step of the way. After the ceremonial use of the money, a differently clothed messenger brings it right back to the vaults, by a different route.

And no, I don't remember whose picture was on the $10,000 bill.

Dave Oesterreich