It might meet part of its obligations, including public-sector wages, by issuing small-denomination IOUs that could in turn be used to buy goods and pay bills.

ECONOMIST: The euro

Roman soldiers were paid in salt, and in early 19th-century Haiti, long-necked gourds were used in place of small-denomination coins because of a shortage of gold and silver.

FORBES: Substitute Money

We would have no effective small-denomination money.

FORBES: Assuming We 'End The Fed,' What's The Next Step?

This station would offer a small premium to buy crisp, higher denomination bills, exchanging them for worn bills of smaller value.

FORBES: Dirty Money Spends Faster

Dutch painters of the era maintained dizzyingly exalted standards of excellence across a range of genres, working for a market in which history paintings functioned as large-denomination currency and still-lifes were useful small change.

NEWYORKER: New Amsterdam