gold doubloons and pieces-of-eight

The other day the bank gave me a large denomination, virtually unspendable euro bill. I couldn't do much with this banknote, except carry it around like a mortgaged Monopoly property or a certificate of stock, since stores shun accepting it. It's strange that one of the most valuable pieces of currency is a bit reviled--gas stations and small shops with signs in their windows announcing their refusal before one even asks, and has garnered a bad reputation, along with the €500, as a facilitator of underworld, under-the-table and off-the-books transactions. Apparently, the largest concentration of these bills is in areas where the financial crisis has been perpetuated because, in part, inability to collect on tariffs and taxes and blackmarket trades.  I wonder what the career is like for money out of circulation: is it like that of the monolithic stone wheels of the Island of Yap?  I felt a little like a gangster myself, when in the end I had to take the Euro-Schein back to the bank in exchange for less ostentatious amounts.