Is your new plastic fiver worth £800?
THEY’VE been in circulation for less than a fortnight. But Britain’s new plastic £5 notes are already a valuable collectors’ item – with some reportedly fetching up to £800.
One collector revealed he had sold three of the polymer fivers for £460 on internet auction site eBay. Notes with low serial numbers in the first printing run have become prized collectors’ items.
Each unique number can be found twice on the reverse side of the note – which features a portrait of Sir Winston Churchill – on the left hand side and the bottom right.
The first fiver – bearing the number AA01 000001 – was presented to the Queen, leaving up to 999,998 others with the same prefix. Collector Alan Scrase hit the jackpot after finding three fivers with consecutive AA01 serial numbers.
The 52-year-old obtained the notes after visiting a bank branch on the day after they were launched on September 13. He failed to get any of collector value on the first day of issue. Speaking to the BBC, he said: ‘I did not get them on September 13 – the first day – but it was just by sheer chance that I went to the bank the next day and they had just got them in. You just go in your bank and ask for them. I got a few.’
After putting the £5 notes on eBay, he received 31 bids – eventually selling the set for £456. A total of 440 million fivers have been printed, meaning there is roughly a one in 440 chance of a note having a valuable AA01 serial number.
Mr Scrase said he would spend the money on adding to his collection of US banknotes. Other cases have been reported of notes selling for up to £800 - 160 times their face value. Bank of England governor Mark Car- ney said the new note – like those issued in Australia – would be cleaner, safer and stronger than paper cash. They can survive a splash of claret, a flick of cigar ash and the nip of a bulldog, he claimed.
‘The use of polymer means it can better withstand being repeatedly folded into wallets or scrunched up inside pockets, and can also survive a spin in the washing machine,’ he added. New security features – such as a transparent window – supposedly make the note harder to counterfeit.
The polymer notes are expected to last an average of five years, compared to the current note’s two years.
The old fiver, featuring prison reformer Elizabeth Fry, will continue to be valid until May 5, 2017.