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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madaxe_again 2 hours ago | parent [-]

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.

	▲	Symbiote 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		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.
	▲	noduerme 2 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		And the only places you can change a €500 note are outside of Europe.