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"A 100-trillion-dollar bill, it turns out, is worth about $5.
That's the going rate for Zimbabwe's highest denomination note, the biggest ever produced for legal tender—and a national symbol of monetary policy run amok. At one point in 2009, a hundred-trillion-dollar bill couldn't buy a bus ticket in the capital of Harare.
But since then the value of the Zimbabwe dollar has soared. Not in Zimbabwe, where the currency has been abandoned, but on eBay.
The notes are a hot commodity among currency collectors and novelty buyers, fetching 15 times what they were officially worth in circulation. In the past decade, President Robert Mugabe and his allies attempted to prop up the economy—and their government—by printing money. Instead, the country's central bankers sparked hyperinflation by issuing bills with more zeros.
The 100-trillion-dollar note, circulated for just a few months before the Zimbabwe dollar was officially abandoned as the country's legal currency in 2009, marked the daily limit people were allowed to withdraw from their bank accounts. Prices rose, wreaking havoc.
The runaway inflation forced Zimbabweans to wait in line to buy bread, toothpaste and other essentials. They often carried bigger bags for their money than the few items they could afford with a devalued currency.
Today, all transactions are in foreign currencies, mainly the U.S. dollar and the South African rand. But Zimbabwe's worthless bills are valuable—at least outside the country. That Zimbabwe's currency happened to be denoted in dollars has amplified appeal, say currency dealers and collectors, particularly after the global financial crisis and mounting public debts sparked inflationary fears in the U.S.
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House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R., Wis.) and Stanford economist John B. Taylor are among the new owners of Zimbabwean bills. Each keeps one in his wallet, brandishing it at opportune moments as evidence of inflation's most extreme possible ramifications. "No self-respecting monetary economist goes around without a 100-trillion-dollar note," Mr. Taylor says with a chuckle.
Only Zimbabwe's secretive central bank officials know the true figures, but dealers estimate that the regime printed roughly five million to seven million bills in the 100-trillion-dollar denomination. Based on the serial numbers and known supply of bills in the collector's market, they believe only a few million were actually released.
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Mr. Kaparadza peddles his bicycle through Harare's poor and working-class neighborhoods, going door-to-door trying to buy people's defunct Zimbabwe dollars. Because the government never attempted to collect the bills or allowed people to exchange them, many still have huge stashes squirreled away at home.
During one such excursion earlier this month, an elderly woman accused Mr. Kaparadza of trying to con her out of valuable currency. "You are a thief. President Mugabe says we will get our money!" she said before slamming the door in his face.
Indeed, the 87-year old Mr. Mugabe has declared that the Zimbabwe dollar will soon return, but members of his awkward unity government are unconvinced. Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai told a farmer at a public rally last year that he should use the bricks of bank notes under his bed "to fertilize his fields."
