Printed in black and green as shown by the $10,000. Although they are still technically legal tender in the United States, high-denomination bills were last printed in 1945 and officially discontinued on July 14, 1969, by the Federal Reserve System.

The $5,000 and $10,000 effectively disappeared well before then: there are only about two hundred $5,000 bills, and three hundred $10,000 bills known, of all series since 1861. Of the $10,000 bills, 100 were preserved for many years by Benny Binion, the owner of Binion's Horseshoe casino in Las Vegas, Nevada, where they were displayed encased in acrylic. The display has since been dismantled and the bills were sold to private collectors.

Circulation of high-denomination bills was halted in 1969 by executive order of President Richard Nixon, in an effort to combat organized crime. The Federal Reserve began taking high-denomination bills out of circulation that year; as of May 30, 2009, there were only 336 of the $10,000 bills in circulation; 342 remaining $5,000 bills; and 165,372 $1,000 bills still being used. Due to their rarity, collectors will pay considerably more than the face value of the bills to acquire them.