How many $5,000 bills exist? Part 2

1928 Series

Only 13 1928 series are $10,000 bills are known, with two in museums, leaving a mere 11 for collectors. One 1928 series recently sold for over $780,000 at a Heritage Auction. Only The Philadelphia district had none printed. Boston, Chicago, St. Louis, Minneapolis and Dallas had notes printed but none have been known to survived.

1934 Series

Printed for every district except Philadelphia and Minneapolis, known to exist from all other districts except Cleveland and San Francisco. Most of the1934 series notes come from the New York district with 112 known of which 100 are from the ” Binion Hoard”.

Binion Hoard

In 1964, casino owner Benny Binion mounted 100 1934 series New York $10,000 bills onto an Inverted Horseshoe which sat at the entrance of Binion’s Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas from 1964 until they were sold off in 1999. The inverted Horseshoe was Las Vegas largest attraction with 3 million visitors annually. Benny Binion was NOT the one who came up with the idea of the inverted Horseshoe, but his business partner Joe E Brown. I will discuss this later in my new book.

When the Binion Family split in the 1990’s, the collection was sold off by Becky Binion, his daughter, to pay off the casino’s debt to a coin dealer at an undisclosed price. Those 100 notes were roughly 60% of all known 1934 $10,000 bills.

The Binion Notes are identifiable by their serial numbers. All Binion notes are from the New York District and are all four digits serial numbers starting with serial number B00002021A and end with serial number B00003740A. Most collectors love the Binion notes because of the pedigreed history behind them, or they may have had their photo taken with them while in Las Vegas.

In my new book soon to be released I will have a whole chapter dedicated exclusively to Benny Binion and how he had an impact on gaming in Las Vegas.

On July 14th, 1969, President Nixon signed a law ordering the Treasury Department to stop issuing the $500, $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 bills to Federal Banks. Up until then you could have purchased any of them for face value. Now the highest denomination issued by banks is the $100 bill.