What is the value of a 1917 10000 dollar gold certificate?

Answer 1

There is no such thing as a 1917 $10,000 gold certificate. The last large-size $10,000 gold certificates were released as the fifth and sixth "issues" of gold certificates by the federal government. These issues were in 1888 and 1900. Unlike previous issues, the 1888 and 1900 issues had nothing on the back of the bill, and they functioned more like bank transfer checks. Most of them were canceled in the teens and 20's. By the 1930's there were none remaining that had not been canceled, and most had subsequently been destroyed.

Most of the few hundred surviving bills, while canceled and technically worthless, were being kept in storage at a post office near the U.S. Teasury in Washington D.C., when a fire broke out on December 12, 1935. Employees threw several boxes into the streets to avoid their getting burned. Among these boxes were the surviving canceled $10,000 series 1900 gold certificates. Some passersby grabbed up some of them, and today many of them are available to collectors, though most of them have suffered minor damage, due to the fire and water being all around when they were taken.

In fact, there are only 2 known $10,000 gold certificates in existence that are still valid legal tender. But both of them are in government/museum collections. They are both series 1882.

The last large size $10,000 issued by the Federal government was the series 1918 Federal Reserve Note. None are available to collectors. There are currently Five known surviving pieces in existence, and all of them are in government/museum collections.

So to be completely accurate, aside from the series 1900 canceled certificates, there is no such thing as a large size $10,000 bill for any individual collector to own or sell, and thus, there are no prices associated with any of them. Series 1900 canceled certificates are generally sold at auction from $1,000 - $3,000, with some selling for as much as $9,000 - $10,000. I believe there has only been one instance to date where one of these sold for more than it's "face value," in which case the bill was in extremely good condition, and sold for around $10,300.

Moving along, there actually are some legal tender $10,000 bills that are available to collectors today. All of them come from series 1928 and 1934 Federal Reserve Note issues. Series 1928 $10,000 gold certificates were issued to the public for circulation as well, and according to the Bureau's records some are still unaccounted for, which means some could still exist somewhere. But to date, no pieces are known.

Finally, one interesting tid-bit: a vast majority of all surviving $10,000 bills of any type come from the Binion's Horseshoe Casino collection. In January of 2000, the collection was sold off, and subsequently dispursed to the numismatic community. So if you ever do see a $10,000, more than likely it came from that collection. These days, depending on the series and the quality of the bill, the $10,000 bills can range in value from $60,000 to over $240,000.