Say, got a spare $10,000,000 on you? That's right, $10 million.

Due to an economic crisis and what reporters are now calling "superinflation," Zimbabwe recently issued a note denominated 10 million Zimbabwe dollars. 

Sadly, the exchange value for a Zimbabwe $10 million note is about U.S. $4 on the black market.

Or, as this only slightly older story says, "A regular loaf of bread would cost US$25 (€18) at the official exchange rate of 30,000-1 or between 40 and 15 U.S. cents at the sharply veering unofficial rate of between 2 million-1 and 5 million-1."

The cost of a hamburger, which each story attempts to use as an example, apparently varies. Maybe these reporters should switch to pizza.

The previous highest denomination note, $750,000, was also a Zimbabwe issue introduced a month or so ago. 

An upcoming issue of Bank Note Reporter will show images of some of these notes.

Added 03/17/2008: I've now posted here the images of the front and back of the new $10,000,000 note that appeared in the March issue of Bank Note Reporter. The images were provided courtesy of Frank van Tiel.

Treasury officials and others will participate in a ceremonial "first spend" of a colorized Series 2006 $5 Federal Reserve Note on the day that the new note first enters circulation, March 13.

According to information from the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, the spending of a new $5 will take place at President Lincoln's Cottageat the Soldier's Home in Washington, D.C.

Just who will participate is not currently known, but I would expect representatives of the Federal Reserve, Treasury and Homeland Security in the form of the Secret Service.

Are you looking forward to the new $5?

The redesigned $5 Federal Reserve Note, with added purple color, new watermarks and other new and altered features will be released to circulation March 13, 2008, the Federal Reserve has announced.

As I've mentioned previously, production has started at the Bureau of Engraving and Printing's Fort Worth, Texas, facility. At least, I've seen a print run of star notes on the October 2007 monthly production report, and more star notes and some regular non-stars on the November report.

I'm told that about 180,000,000 colorized $5 bills (so some $900 million) are expected to be on hand at Federal Reserve banks for the initial release.

The new notes will bear series date Series 2006, the BEP tells me. 

But, a bunch of current, non-colorized $5s produced by the BEP starting in May 2007 also bear the Series 2006 date. By my count based on the BEP monthly production reports, about 409,600,000 ($2.048 billion) pre-colorized Series 2006 $5s had been produced for circulation through the November 2007 report.

Will having two very different $5 designs with the same series date cause any confusion?

Will you be saving nice-looking $5s that come your way?

Note also that Series 2006 (pre-colorized) $5 FRN uncut sheets went on sale today from the BEP. Click here to see the BEP's sales page for these sheets.

UPDATE: A little over an hour after I posted this, the November BEP production report became available. Just a coincidence?  Hmmm ... probably! In any event, I've updated the post to reflect the current information.