Could your £5 note actually be worth £50,000?
How to check if the note inside is worth more than your wallet
Words: Gentleman's Journal
‘All men are created equal,’ according to the US Declaration of Independence. But, unusually not all of the new £5 notes were.
By now you will have been handed a new five pound note. Like most people you will have instagrammed a picture of it and spent 30 seconds tentatively testing whether indeed you can rip it.
Likewise, as a Gentleman you probably haven’t done any of your Christmas shopping, but before you rush out to frantically do your own version of Supermarket Sweep, take a closer look at the note in your hand – it might be worth more than you realised. Currency collectors have been paying far more than face value for the rarest versions of the note believing that they will be worth a lot more in the future. While a rare note may be worth £200, the Daily Mirror recently estimated that the rarest notes could be worth as much as £50,000.
You can check if you have a rare note by looking for a low serial number. All fivers from the first print batch have a a serial number starting with an AA prefix and the most valuable versions begin AA01. The lower the number the more valuable your note is.
Somebody has already sold three £5 notes for £456 while a charity auction organised by the Bank of England sold a note with the serial number AA01 000017 for £4,150.
The polymer note was realised on the 13th September and includes a portrait of Sir Winston Churchill. Over 440 million have already been released into the British economy. There are also four rare “Jane Austen notes” which feature a miniature engraving of the writer and a quote from one of her novels, including: Emma, Pride and Prejudice, and Mansfield Park.
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