small, unmarked bills

• small unmarked bills
• unmarked small bills
• unmarked, small bills

small, unmarked bills pl (plural only)

1. (set phrase) Paper currency which consists of small-denomination banknotes that have not been inscribed with hidden markings which would help authorities identify and trace them.
   • 1968 January 22, Alfred Wright, “Johnny Bags A Winner's Pott”, in Sports Illustrated, retrieved 2 August 2014:

     Claude Harmon, the former Masters champion, immediately withdrew from the tournament with the booming declaration, "I wouldn't play that course again if they gave me $5,000 in small unmarked bills."

   • 1994 June 12, Pat H. Broeske, “Film: Death is Hard . . . Reincarnation Is Easy”, in New York Times, retrieved 2 August 2014:

     THE MOVIE "Speed". . . . WHAT HE WANTS $3.7 million in small, unmarked bills. OR ELSE A bomb on the bus will be detonated.

   • 1998, Suzanne Brockmann, It Came Upon a Midnight Clear, published 2007, →ISBN, page 181:

     "[I]f the commander wants all the dirt I've already uncovered, and all the dirt I'm going to uncover about him to stay neatly under the rug, then he's going to have to pay. Two hundred and fifty thousand in small, unmarked bills."

   • 2002 October 27, Lev Grossman, “Busjacking for Grownups”, in Time, retrieved 2 August 2014:

     Vice City is . . . a steaming Cuban sandwich of sultry Latin sirens, drug deals gone bad and seedy mobsters with big metal briefcases full of small unmarked bills.

• Often used to refer to the money demanded by a bank robber, extortionist, or kidnapper.
• Also used, by extension and sometimes humorously, to refer to readily spendable cash obtained by any illicit or somewhat questionable means.

• unmarked small bills, unmarked, small bills