$10,000 bill sent to N.Y. for safekeeping

updated 12:16 p.m. ET March 9, 2006

GREEN BAY, Wis. - A rare $10,000 bill is getting a new home. The bill -- one of 15 large-denomination bills at a Chase Bank branch in Green Bay -- was shipped to the bank's corporate archives in New York for safekeeping.

The $10,000 bill bears the likeness of Salmon P. Chase, for whom the bank was named. Chase was a U.S. senator who served as treasury secretary under President Lincoln.

The large bill was discovered in a bank customer's safety deposit box after the owner died 20 years ago. The woman's family exchanged the currency at face value, and the bank stored the bill in a plastic sleeve for protection.

But bank officials decided the bills would be safer at the JP Morgan Chase & Co. corporate office in New York. The bank sent the bills there last month by armored truck.

The government stopped printing bills larger than $100 in 1945 and hasn't issued any since 1969. The Green Bay bills were printed in 1934.

"The bills had been in our vault so long that many of us were sad to see them go, but we're glad to know that historic bills will be properly preserved," said Green Bay branch manager Carrie Liebhauser.

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