"Mark Brader" wrote in message
...

Neither were the $100,000 US ones. The largest US denomination for
general circulation is the $10,000, last issued around 1944 (but still
valid if you have any, as the US does not demonetize old issues).
The highest denomination still printed in the US dropped again around
1969 from $1,000 to $100, and Canada copied that move in about 2000,
in both cases on the grounds that criminals would be inconvenienced
and most other people would not.

It seems that people and businesses feel a bit uneasy about the 500-euro
note, as if it has some sort of stigma attached to it.

ObRail: a few years ago in Switzerland I had the pleasure of buying
a train ticket that cost something like 130 francs and paying for it
by inserting cash into the ticket machine *including a 100-franc note,
worth over 40 pounds*. The 200-franc denomination was in common use
as well, and I daresay the machine would have accepted that too if my
ticket had been expensive enough.

I notice that in Amsterdam, GVB does not accept 50-euro notes.