Still, the U.S. won't make anything higher than a $100 bill available, causing some heavy wallets and oversized wads. Turns out that is exactly what the government wants.
There were higher denominations that were last printed on December 27, 1945 but weren't officially discontinued on July until, 1969.
They included $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 as early as 1961. In 1969 the larger bills started being taken out of circulation by President Nixon. As of 2009, only 336 $10,000 bills, 342 $5,000 bills and 165,372 $1,000 bills were known to exist.
Nixon decided to take large denominations out of circulation since electronic transactions were used for legal, large-scale transfers. Large bills were being used to make illegal transactions such as drug trading across the border and counterfeiting.
Without large bills, transferring major sums of money would be more risky and a huge pain in the butt for the cartels.
