[sjtrny]

A lot of this concern would be removed if the US switched to polymer notes. Visiting the US last year I was surprised to see people immediately suspicious of $50 notes that I gave them. I've never seen that happen in Australia, even with $100 note.

[barrkel]

You're attributing one thing - suspicion of a particular denomination - to something which it may not be related to. It may simply be due to how common a particular denomination is used in the cash economy.

In the Eurozone, €50 notes are very frequently used - it would be unusual to be specifically suspicious of that denomination - while €100 notes are far more rare.

[sliverstorm]

To support this, I almost never see $50's. The dominant bill in the US is the $20, followed perhaps by $1, $5, $10, $100 in roughly that order. (that's my own estimation though)

Edit: Some data - http://www.federalreserve.gov/paymentsystems/coin_data.htm#v...

[sjtrny]

You could be correct although I saw many other people paying for things with $50 notes too. I didn't think they were rare. Maybe it is store policy to do the counterfeit checks on $50/100 notes?

[UrMomReadsHN]

I can count on one hand how many times I've had a 50 in my wallet. We normally use 20s in the US. When I worked in retail policy was to check anything larger than a 20.

[mlvljr]

I had my subconsciousness ping me I'd better buy something with that 500 Euro bill in the duty free shop when going to Europe last year :)

[prawn]

Yeah, it amazed me too. Not to mention the durability and quicker recognition by colour. And that $1 notes and the low coins still exist.

If the population is too immersed in tradition, win them over with the coolest notes ever. Something using dark blue and dark red with white/silver could look awesome. Rather than what we have in Australia, Canada and Europe where there are 5-6 completely different colours used, one for each note.

I wondered if it's something to do with patents? Australia's RBA has a subsidiary that prints notes for various countries. Maybe there's a competing technology that Canada is using?

[claudius]

> Europe where there are 5-6 completely different colours used, one for each note.

I quite like that and never really understood why US bills are only green. If I look for 50€ in my wallet, I’m going to skip over the blues and greens and essentially directly pick the right orang-y one.

I’ve also never seen anyone suspicious of 50€, people sometimes look funny if they see 100€, but even that happens rarely.

[prawn]

I appreciate the differences too. And as with you, I've never seen anyone check a banknote suspiciously in AU or EU, but I have many times in the US.

[colanderman]

Polymer notes have issues with shrinking and tearing: http://montreal.ctvnews.ca/new-canadian-polymer-100-bill-shr...