Where are the recent $100 bills?

[jpatter666]

Weird enough that I thought I'd comment on it.

So my wife runs an NGO charity and is reviewing operations in South Sudan. Apparently they only will accept unblemished $50 and $100 bills -- 2007 and older. Well, I think, no problem, I live in the US, major metropolitan area, I have an account with Wells Fargo (I keep one TBTF account for exactly help with this sort of stuff), I'll just go down and get $1500 in bills (that being what they asked for -- everything in Juba is ridiculous, but that's another story).

But they can't find any. *Every* $100 bill is 2006 or earlier. I call four other Wells Fargo banks -- same thing. I finally had to resort to nothing but 50s.

What the hell?

Is this just a weird coincidence or is something else I don't know going on? I was wondering if all recent $100 were being sent overseas because of the extra security added to them?

[aaron]

Re: Where are the recent $100 bills?

Only criminals need to use cash. Why should they have it on hand?

Make sure the bills you get are not wrinkled or used. You should demand new ones.

My too-big-to-fail bank had trouble giving me cash in the past because I wanted new bills for travel. They suggested I contact them several days before so they could have it for me. Bank of Amerika, was the bank.

[jpatter666]

Re: Where are the recent $100 bills?

Only criminals need to use cash. Why should they have it on hand?

Make sure the bills you get are not wrinkled or used. You should demand new ones.

My too-big-to-fail bank had trouble giving me cash in the past because I wanted new bills for travel. They suggested I contact them several days before so they could have it for me. Bank of Amerika, was the bank.

I *did* contact them several days before. Still couldn't do it.

Rather EPIC FAIL on their part IMO.

On the fun side, I did rant about this to my reporter brother -- maybe he can get some play out of it.

[dcarrigg]

Re: Where are the recent $100 bills?

Weird enough that I thought I'd comment on it.

So my wife runs an NGO charity and is reviewing operations in South Sudan. Apparently they only will accept unblemished $50 and $100 bills -- 2007 and older. Well, I think, no problem, I live in the US, major metropolitan area, I have an account with Wells Fargo (I keep one TBTF account for exactly help with this sort of stuff), I'll just go down and get $1500 in bills (that being what they asked for -- everything in Juba is ridiculous, but that's another story).

But they can't find any. *Every* $100 bill is 2006 or earlier. I call four other Wells Fargo banks -- same thing. I finally had to resort to nothing but 50s.

What the hell?

Is this just a weird coincidence or is something else I don't know going on? I was wondering if all recent $100 were being sent overseas because of the extra security added to them?

Long story short, even bills printed in 2012 say 2006A on them right now. From Wikipedia:

The Series 2009 $100 bill redesign was unveiled on April 21, 2010, and was to be issued to the public in February 11, 2011,^[4][5] but production was shut down in December 2010 because as many as 30% were unusable due to a manufacturing flaw. A vertical crease in the paper reveals a blank space on the bill when pulled out.^[6] In their replacement, and continuing the high demand of this denomination, the Series 2006A was launched retaining the previous design (1996-generation). The redesign is projected to be released in 2013.^{[citation needed]}

[jpatter666]

Re: Where are the recent $100 bills?

Long story short, even bills printed in 2012 say 2006A on them right now. From Wikipedia:

The Series 2009 $100 bill redesign was unveiled on April 21, 2010, and was to be issued to the public in February 11, 2011,^[4][5] but production was shut down in December 2010 because as many as 30% were unusable due to a manufacturing flaw. A vertical crease in the paper reveals a blank space on the bill when pulled out.^[6] In their replacement, and continuing the high demand of this denomination, the Series 2006A was launched retaining the previous design (1996-generation). The redesign is projected to be released in 2013.^{[citation needed]}

Ah! Thank you very much! That explains why everyone had nothing but 2006s!

[lektrode]

Re: Where are the recent $100 bills?

Ah! Thank you very much! That explains why everyone had nothing but 2006s!

talk about The Arcane Trivia Question du jour!

and leave it to dc to come up with The Answer - he sure does know how to find stuff like this...

[soliver]

Re: Where are the recent $100 bills?

Weird enough that I thought I'd comment on it.

So my wife runs an NGO charity and is reviewing operations in South Sudan. Apparently they only will accept unblemished $50 and $100 bills -- 2007 and older. Well, I think, no problem, I live in the US, major metropolitan area, I have an account with Wells Fargo (I keep one TBTF account for exactly help with this sort of stuff), I'll just go down and get $1500 in bills (that being what they asked for -- everything in Juba is ridiculous, but that's another story).

But they can't find any. *Every* $100 bill is 2006 or earlier. I call four other Wells Fargo banks -- same thing. I finally had to resort to nothing but 50s.

What the hell?

Is this just a weird coincidence or is something else I don't know going on? I was wondering if all recent $100 were being sent overseas because of the extra security added to them?

Interesting, I live and work in South Sudan, based in Juba. I'm in Mauritania at the moment. You're right 100s are hard to come by.

[aaron]

Re: Where are the recent $100 bills?

Welcome to the site!

[soliver]

Re: Where are the recent $100 bills?

thank you very much!

[GRG55]

Re: Where are the recent $100 bills?

Welcome to the site!

I send my greetings as well! It's always valuable to get the perspectives of iTulipers that are "on the ground" around the world.

[lektrode]

Re: Where are the recent $100 bills?

I send my greetings as well! It's always valuable to get the perspectives of iTulipers that are "on the ground" around the world.

+2

[c1ue]

Re: Where are the recent $100 bills?

I can give some anecdotal evidence as well.

I was in Vegas a few weeks ago. A person I know likes to cash out their payouts while still playing the same machine, so I was helping since I don't have the means to gamble.

Anyway, some of the machines were consistently jamming when taking in the $100 bills. A casino floor boss said that certain types of machines consistently jammed on anything 2006.

So, since I was bored and had nothing else to do, I sorted the stacks of $100 bills. Over half are 2006 or 2006a. Interestingly there were only a handful of other years represented with the oldest ranging back to 1993? 1994?

Anyway, I just wondered if the jamming was a real phenomenon or simply an observational error due to the sheer numbers of 2006 bills.