Versions of Excel up to 97 had a command on the 'Data' menu called 'Text To Columns' which used to do a good job of converting troublesome 'numbers as text' columns like this. I haven't seen it in later versions though. Was it a 'Valuepak' Add-in?

My suggestion would be to copy the troublesome cells, paste them somewhere else. Set the format of the cells you have copied TO to 'Genereal' and, if any $ symbols remain, manually remove them.

Then re-select the original troublesome cells and go to 'Edit' - 'Clear' - 'All', then to copy the values from where you pasted them to, re-select the original troublesome cells, then go to 'Edit' - 'Paste Special' and paste Values (not Format, Formula or anything else).

Then, re-apply the currency format.

BizMark