History Main / ZillionDollarBill

* Franchise/TolkiensLegenarium
** In ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings,'' Frodo's mithril coat is said to be more valuable than "the whole Shire and everything in it." That's probably because the only mine in the world where mithril can be found has a bit of a Balrog problem, is infested with goblins, and has a giant man-eating octopus-monster-thing at the gates.
** In ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'', Fëanor's Silmarils are three jewels which preserve the last remnants of the holy light from before the Sun and Moon were created. The BigBad Morgoth steals them, and Fëanor and his seven sons swear an unbreakable oath to murder whoever tries to claim them. Subsequent attempts by them and others to gain the Silmarils kill numerous innocent people, and end up with two of the three jewels buried for all time at the bottom of the ocean and inside the planetery crust.

* Between 1929 and 1945, the American government printed paper money in denominations going up to $10,000 bills that were actually released into circulation, and $100,000 bills used for interbank transfers. See [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_denominations_of_United_States_currency this article]] at {{Wikipedia}}.

* [[http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/07/trillion-dollar-coin-solution_n_2426333.html The trillion dollar coin idea]]

* ''WesternAnimation/GravityFalls'': [[spoiler: Quentin Trembly (the eighth-and-a-half U.S. President) gives Dipper the "less than worthless" $-12 bill at the end of of the episode "Irrational Treasure"]]

[[folder: Anime and Manga ]]

* In ''{{Trigun}}'' the astronomical bounty on Vash the Stampede's head makes him a walking ZillionDollarBill. As a result, even well-intentioned people try to kill him.

[[folder: Comic Books ]]
* In one ''[[ComicBook/TheLifeAndTimesOfScroogeMcDuck Uncle Scrooge]]'' comic, Scrooge arranges for a coin to be worth skyrillions of dollars (by purchasing every other coin for the double of its value and [[YouFailEconomicsForever dumping them in the ocean]]). He then finds that the only one who has enough money to pay for it is himself.

* The million-year capsule in ''InTime''.
* In ''TheMightyQuinn'', a local beach bum comes across a suitcase filled with 10,000 bills, part of a bigger murder mystery the police chief Quinn is investigating.

* Middle-earth:
** In ''Literature/TheLordOfTheRings,'' Frodo's mithril coat is said to be more valuable than "the whole Shire and everything in it." That's probably because the only mine in the world where mithril can be found has a bit of a Balrog problem, is infested with goblins, and has a giant man-eating octopus-monster-thing at the gates.
** In ''Literature/TheSilmarillion'', Fëanor's Silmarils are three jewels which preserve the last remnants of the holy light from before the Sun and Moon were created. The BigBad Morgoth steals them, and Fëanor and his seven sons swear an unbreakable oath to murder whoever tries to claim them. Subsequent attempts by them and others to gain the Silmarils kill numerous innocent people, and end up with two of the three jewels buried for all time at the bottom of the ocean and inside the planetery crust.

* The low-budget version appears in Upton Sinclair's ''The Jungle''. In 1920s Chicago, an unemployed stockyard worker is given a hundred-dollar bill by a rich drunk. (This is about as much money as the hero could make in a year.) But he has no other money with him, and he'll freeze to death if he tries to walk home. In desperation, he goes into a bar to stay warm until the banks open in the morning. They won't let him stay without buying something, so he uses the bill to buy a 5-cent beer. The bartender gives him 95 cents in change, and everyone else enjoys a big laugh when he tries to convince them that he's been cheated.
* In Terry Pratchett's proto-Literature/{{Discworld}} book ''Strata'', money is defined as ''time'' - each bill is worth extra years of life. The biggest bill is the Methuselah (named after the longest-lived Biblical personality) which few people have ever seen. The book also features a bottomless purse, which continually spits out bills which are not technically counterfeit, but which have serial numbers that haven't been used yet.
** There's a similar short film where the currency is your own life. You work for more life and spend bits of your life to buy things, the basic currency being hours or minutes. The Heroine eventually marries and gets rich and rewards her friends with a necklace, each bead of which is several months or years, but they fight over it and it breaks. It had people playing poker machines and gambling for more life. That's right, people were [[StealthPun wasting their lives gambling.]]
* The eponymous dragon in Peter F. Hamilton's ''FallenDragon''. In a subversion, the small community benefiting from its advanced technology attempts [[spoiler: to hijack a starship to return it to its own kind. In a brilliant sucker punch, the dragon is as valuable to its own kind as a single sperm is to us.]]
* The Portrait of Madison in Creator/RaymondChandler's Literature/PhilipMarlowe novel ''The Long Goodbye''. Sure, it's only $5,000 -- but where are you going to spend that in [[TheFifties the 1950s]]?

* EdgarAllanPoe, of all people, wrote a short story about the discovery of a process that could change lead into gold. Unusually, the story is explicitly about the economic disaster such a process would cause.

* At the beginning of ''Literature/TheMoonIsAHarshMistress'' by R.A. Heinlein, [[MasterComputer Mike]] gave a janitor a paycheck for $10,000,000,000,000,185.15 as a joke. It was determined to be a "computer error" and the check was declared invalid.

* In ''Literature/QueenZixiOfIx'', the royal purse-bearer wishes for a bag of money that never runs empty, and it is granted. Interestingly, when the fairies return and revoke the foolishly-made wishes, this is one of the wishes they do not revoke, as it "[[ArtisticLicenseEconomics assured the future prosperity of the kingdom of Noland]]".

[[folder: Live Action TV ]]

* Averted in a ''TheMaryTylerMooreShow'' episode: throughout the episode, Ted Baxter avoids repaying five dollars to Murray Slaughter by offering to repay Murray IF he can make change for a hundred dollar bill. At episode's end, Murray announces he can make change for the hundred dollar bill -- pulling out a heavy bank bag -- ''in pennies''!

* Parodied in ''TheGoonShow'' episode "The Million Pound Penny", in which Neddy Seagoon owns a penny that has been left a million pounds in a relative's will. Not surprisingly this ends in disaster.

[[folder: Tabletop Games ]]
* Parodied in the MAD board game, which featured a [[http://www.boardgamegeek.com/image/204608 $1,329,063 bill]]. Granted, you could only get it if you landed on a certain square and your name was Alfred E. Neuman - but maybe it's for the best, as the object of said board game is to ''lose'' all your money.
* In 1st Edition [[DungeonsAndDragons AD&D]], where the value of gemstones was determined at random, a tiny but genuine chance existed for the DM to roll up gems worth many millions of gold pieces. Just how an adventurer is supposed to ''sell off'' such incredible gems in your average medieval village was not addressed.

* The Star of Africa from [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrikan_t%C3%A4hti the Finnish board game by the same name]]. You can find plenty of jewels in the game and cash them in for money that helps in getting ahead, but the Star of Africa is the only diamond, and effectively priceless; it can't be sold as such, but taking it back to one of the starting cities wins the game.

* Less extreme than most, but still noteworthy; the talent, the largest denomination of Jade currency in ''{{Exalted}}'' is enough to pay the wages of a large army all on its own. This may not seem like much, but considering the [[SwordAndSandal general financial and communication capabilities of the setting]], it's pretty major. Portrayed fairly realistically; the talent is so valuable that it is hardly ever used in transactions, mostly appearing just in accounts ledgers and resting in bank or personal vaults securing somebody's finances (although the fact that a single talent is several square feet large and weighs almost 70 pounds helps).

[[folder: Video Games ]]

*** [[IndianaJones They belong in a museum!]]
* In ''VideoGame/EarthBound'', you are at one point given ten thousand dollars in cash and later an extremely valuable diamond, both of which you must use shortly afterwards to get the band known as the Runaway Five out of a bum contract. You'd think they'd have learned their lesson the first time.
** At least they return the favor during a HopelessBossFight. [[ThatOneBoss IF you didn't get killed during the fight...]]
* In the game ''VideoGame/EvilGenius'', one of the loot items you can steal is a million dollar bill (The game is set in the '60s). Since its too big to actually spend, it sits in your base, cheering up your minions.
** This makes more sense than the in-game explanation that the bill isn't actually real money, but some odd PR stunt by the US President. Maybe the designers thought [[ViewersAreMorons the players wouldn't understand]].
* In ''VideoGame/MonkeyIsland2LeChucksRevenge'', you start with, well, not an actual bill, but so much gold, diamonds and treasure you are extremely wealthy and prosperous. Of course, it gets stolen the next minute...
** In ''VideoGame/TheCurseOfMonkeyIsland'', early on you can find a bag of wooden nickels...and later on you can cash in your life insurance policy in exchange for a '''lot''' of money (virtually all of which will be spent playing poker).
*** The joke here is that the thieves won't accept a "lot" of money for the diamond, saying "We can't give it to you for anything less than an ''awful'' lot of money."

* In ''ManiacMansion 2: Day of the Tentacle,'' you manage to make the Edisons fabulously wealthy by obtaining [[RecursiveCanon the back royalties Lucasarts owes them]] for the first ''ManiacMansion'' game. Naturally, the money must immediately be spent to buy a giant diamond to repair your time machine.
* ''SamAndMax:'' Season One introduces the character of Bosco, a [[ConspiracyTheorist paranoid convenience store owner/inventor]] who charges ludicrous amounts of money for his simple inventions (such as a tear gas gun that's just a salad chopper strapped to an airgun that you're meant to shoot onions out of). The trope is avoided at first, though Bosco does accept things like food stamps and arcade tokens in lieu of cash, until eventually you sell the deed to America to Canada for a trillion dollars... delivered in the form of a handful of ''billion''-dollar bills. Obviously, no matter how much money you have, the only in-game use for it is to buy Bosco's inventions. To make things even better, Bosco reveals that he only asks for so much money because he never actually expects them to be able to pay for it, and is just trying to see [[RefugeInAudacity how much he can get away with]]. To list the types of payment accepted by Bosco:

* In ''VideoGame/{{Borderlands}}'', the Vault is literally said to contain ''infinite'' wealth (along with advanced alien technology, fame, power, and ''[[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking women]]''), so the Vault Keys serve as a ZillionDollarBill. [[spoiler:And you can even sell them, although the fact that the Vault really contains SealedEvilInACan significantly devalues them by the time you do so.]]
* In ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3'' the [[MacGuffin Philosopher's Legacy]] is a microfilm containing bank information for $100 billion US, more than the real-world US budget at the time. Justified as a slush fund created by ''all'' the Allies pooling their resources to fight the Axis. [[spoiler:The Legacy is recovered and distributed between three world powers; most of it eventually falls into the hands of the Patriots]].
* In the ''DestroyAllHumans!'' series, [=DNA/Cortexes=] serve as this. The Furon race literally depends on their own DNA for survival. They eat it, drink it, and trade it for money. And in DAH!3, your DNA collection can go up into the billions. Since Pox and Crypto are the ones responsible for collecting it, they are the wealthiest, most important people of their race. [[YouHaveFailedMe Until they screw it up]].
* In one of the stages in ''VideoGame/PennyArcadeAdventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness'' the main enemy is the incredibly wealthy. As such, the smallest denomination of money they drop is a twenty thousand dollar bill. They also rob an ATM of quite a large sum of money, which, given that Tycho ''interrupts the machine'' as it is giving an exact figure of the account they are attempting to rob, is more or less a drop in the bucket.
* The "zillion-chip piece" (poker chips are the universal currency) in ''TwilightHeroes'' only drops on April Fool's Day and sells for... 1 chip.
* The diamond encrusted skull from ''[[FiftyCentBloodOnTheSand 50 Cent: Blood on The Sand]]''.

[[folder: Web Original ]]

* [[http://www.cracked.com/article_20067_5-b.s.-political-arguments-you-hear-every-election-season.html This]] ''Website/{{Cracked}}'' article has an illustration of an "All The Dollars" bill, which features TheodoreRoosevelt as the president portrait. The picture is captioned "Where the hell am I going to break this?"

[[folder: Western Animation ]]
* ''WesternAnimation/TheSimpsons'' had "The Trouble with Trillions", where Homer finds out that Montgomery Burns had a trillion-dollar bill in his possession that he stole and was originally printed to pay for damages from WWII in Europe. It's not quite a ''zillion'' dollars, but that's enough. At least ([[OutOfCharacterMoment as Lisa said]]) for some dune buggies.
** In the episode ''Mr. Plow'', Homer gets rival plowman Barney Gumble to spend the day dragging his plow up a mountain with the promise of a ten thousand dollar bill. When asked which president is on it, he claims, "''All of them. They're having a party. Jimmy Carter has passed out on the couch.''". [[note]]The actual ten-thousand dollar bill features Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, and hasn't been in cicrulation for decades.[[/note]][[TheDitz Barney]] is so impressed that he leaves immediately, abandoning his hot tub with Music/LindaRonstadt.

* Referred to in an episode of ''JonnyQuest'': YellowPeril Zinn has found a way to create gold; the heroes have to destroy the method not only to keep him from using his ill-gotten gains to fund his evil network, but also to prevent the collapse of the global economy should the secret become open knowledge.
** A similar idea was part of an episode of the original ''[[WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles1987 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles]]'' cartoon, where the turtles dread the thought of an alien turtle race moving to Earth: they are a benevolent race, but they also have the technology to create gold effortlessly (in fact, they use it mostly as a building material).
* An episode of the original 1960s Spider-Man had the Vulture ransoming the city for two million dollars in the form of two one million dollar bills.

[[folder: Real Life ]]

** The U.S. Treasury also stopped producing large bills to make it difficult for criminals to move large sums of cash. $1,000,000 in $100 bills weighs about 20 lbs. and takes up over 600 cubic inches of space - not something you can easily hide when passing through security.

* In ''Literature/QueenZixiOfIx'', the royal purse-bearer wishes for a bag of money that never runs empty, and it is granted. Interestingly, when the fairies return and revoke the foolishly-made wishes, this is one of the wishes they do not revoke, as it "[[ArtisticLicenseEconomics assured the future prosperity of the kingdom of Noland]]".

*** Likewise, the Bank of Canada no longer issues $10,000 or $1,000 bills; the $100 note is the current highest Canadian denomination.

* In one of the stages in ''PennyArcadeAdventures OnTheRainSlickPrecipiceOfDarkness'' the main enemy is the incredibly wealthy. As such, the smallest denomination of money they drop is a twenty thousand dollar bill. They also rob an ATM of quite a large sum of money, which, given that Tycho ''interrupts the machine'' as it is giving an exact figure of the account they are attempting to rob, is more or less a drop in the bucket.

* {{Shadowrun}} has these ''standardized''; Everyone uses sturdy USB drive-like devices called "[[WeWillSpendCreditsInTheFuture credsticks]]" for money, and these come in two flavors. "Personal" credsticks are basically just biometric debit cards. "Certified" credsticks(also known as "checksticks") can be used by whoever picks them up, and have ''absolutely no limit'' on how much currency they can store - essentially 21st century bearer bonds, as described at BriefcaseFullOfMoney. These are what {{Mega Corp}}s regularly use to pay player characters for deniable operations.

* Mark Twain wrote a story called ''The Million-Pound Note'' in which a man lost in England is given a million-pound note by an eccentric rich man he has just met. He can't actually SPEND it, since no one can make change, but showing it everywhere is enough to let him open a lot of lines of credit. It turns out [[spoiler: the whole thing was a bet on what a foreigner lost in a strange land with nothing to his name but a million-pound note would actually DO]]. It was made into a classic film in 1953. It was also made into a DonaldDuck story.

* In ''QueenZixiOfIx'', the royal purse-bearer wishes for a bag of money that never runs empty, and it is granted. Interestingly, when the fairies return and revoke the foolishly-made wishes, this is one of the wishes they do not revoke, as it "[[ArtisticLicenseEconomics assured the future prosperity of the kingdom of Noland]]".

Compare ImpossiblyCoolWealth. In the future, such a bill would be worth nothing thanks to RidiculousFutureInflation. An example of YouFailEconomicsForever on the few occasions it can actually be used in the story, as it would immediately destroy any economy it was introduced to in a realistic setting- if anyone would actually take it, which smarter writers will often use as a plot point.

* ''Anime/LupinIII,'' [[Recap/LupinIIIS2E13 "I Left My Mind in San Francisco"]]: The MacGuffin of the episode is a microfilm of a process that can artificially create diamonds, at a very low cost. Lupin wants to destroy it, because the film would be a disaster to exist, making all of the other diamonds people had worked hard for mining from the earth (and had stolen by him) completely worthless.

** In the episode ''Mr. Plow'', Homer gets rival plowman Barney Gumble to spend the day dragging his plow up a mountain with the promise of a ten thousand dollar bill. When asked which president is on it, he claims, "''All of them. They're having a party. Jimmy Carter has passed out on the couch.''". [[TheDitz Barney]] is so impressed that he leaves immediately, abandoning his hot tub with Music/LindaRonstadt.

* '''[[Recap/LupinIIIS2E13 "I Left My Mind in San Francisco"]]''': The MacGuffin of the episode is a microfilm of a process that can artificially create diamonds, at a very low cost. Lupin wants to destroy it, because the film would be a disaster to exist, making all of the other diamonds people had worked hard for mining from the earth (and stolen had by him) completely worthless.

*** [[WhatAnIdiot And never thought of just depositing it in a bank account]].

* Mark Twain wrote a story called ''The Million-Pound Note'' in which a man lost in England is [[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin given a million-pound note]] by an eccentric rich man he has just met. He can't actually SPEND it, since no one can make change, but showing it everywhere is enough to let him open a lot of lines of credit. It turns out [[spoiler: the whole thing was a bet on what a foreigner lost in a strange land with nothing to his name but a million-pound note would actually DO]]. It was made into a classic film in 1953. It was also made into a DonaldDuck story.

* The same for a method to artificially create diamonds in an episode of ''LupinIII'' so that the ones they already have stolen are worthless, that is except Fujiko who betrays the group (for the twentieth-odd time) to get it for herself.

* In a ''RichieRich'' story, the kid tries a different kind of monetary security as he arranges for a literal million dollar bank note. Sure enough, some crooks steal it, but find they can't break it since no one takes the item seriously and they chase away the crooks continually. Eventually, they give up in despair, mail the bank note back to Richie with a note saying "If there is a reward for this, please send it in nickels, dimes and quarters."

* In ''MonkeyIsland2'', you start with, well, not an actual bill, but so much gold, diamonds and treasure you are extremely wealthy and prosperous. Of course, it gets stolen the next minute...
** In the [[VideoGame/TheCurseOfMonkeyIsland sequel]], early on you can find a bag of wooden nickels...and later on you can cash in your life insurance policy in exchange for a '''lot''' of money (virtually all of which will be spent playing poker).

* In the game ''EvilGenius'', one of the loot items you can steal is a million dollar bill (The game is set in the '60s). Since its too big to actually spend, it sits in your base, cheering up your minions.

* ''TheSimpsons'' had "The Trouble with Trillions", where Homer finds out that Montgomery Burns had a trillion-dollar bill in his possession that he stole and was originally printed to pay for damages from WWII in Europe. It's not quite a ''zillion'' dollars, but that's enough. At least ([[OutOfCharacterMoment as Lisa said]]) for some dune buggies.

** In the episode ''Mr. Plow'', Homer gets rival plowman Barney Gumble to spend the day dragging his plow up a mountain with the promise of a ten thousand dollar bill. When asked which president is on it, he claims, "''All of them. They're having a party. Jimmy Carter has passed out on the couch.''". [[TheDitz Barney]] is so impressed that he leaves immediately, abandoning his hot tub with Linda Ronstadt.

* [[{{Unobtainium}} Adamantine]] in ''DwarfFortress''; a single sword or piece of jewellery made from it can buy out an entire merchant caravan. Considering it can be used to make {{Absurdly Sharp Blade}}s and NighInvulnerable armour that weigh about as much as ''styrofoam'' this is very much justified, even if your dwarves didn't have to brave the [[TheNotSecret "Hidden" Fun Stuff]] to get their hands on some.

* An episode of the original 1960's Spider-Man had the Vulture ransoming the city for two million dollars in the form of two one million dollar bills.

** They still do print large bills like that. Mostly they're used by banks and the government to transfer large amounts of money.
** The U.S. Treasury stopped producing large bills to make it difficult for criminals to move large sums of cash. $1,000,000 in $100 bills weighs about 20 lbs. and takes up over 600 cubic inches of space - not something you can easily hide when passing through security.