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Starting today, new banknotes with the image of King Charles III will enter circulation for the first time.
The new polymer banknotes replace those of the late Queen Elizabeth II and are the culmination of an extraordinary feat of design, logistics and planning that took 10 years to complete.
King Charles III will be the second monarch to appear on Bank of England banknotes, the first being Queen Elizabeth II in 1960.
Although banknotes entering circulation on June 5, 2024 will feature a new portrait of the monarch, the reverse of each banknote remains unchanged.
And today, This is Money can reveal the prefixes and serial numbers of the first £5, £10, £20 and £50 King notes to be printed.
Treasure hunt: This is Money may reveal the first prefixes on King Charles banknotes entering circulation today
Each banknote features its own unique serial number to identify and date it with a four-digit prefix. For each prefix, 999,000 notes are printed, from 000001 to 999000.
The Bank of England has shared with This is Money the lowest serial numbers printed on the new King Charles banknotes for the four different banknote denominations.
The Bank of England has confirmed that the first printed serial numbers are:
• £5: CA 01 000001
• £10: HB 01 000001
• £20: EH 01 000001
• £50: AJ 01 000001
But you won’t find any notes containing these serial numbers.
This is because the 000001 notes are now in the hands of the King himself.
The Bank of England confirmed that Her Majesty received one of each denomination on April 9.
A Bank of England spokesperson said: “These banknotes are a continuation of our polymer series and the serial numbers follow the last printed banknotes depicting Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.”
However, if you purchase a note with one of these prefixes and an old serial number, you may find that it is worth much more than its face value.
This is what happened in 2016, when This is Money revealed that the first £5 AA01 polymer banknotes, featuring Sir Winston Churchill, were changing hands for huge sums of money, sparking a treasure hunt across the world. country.
Precisely for this reason, more than a third of Britons (equivalent to around 20 million adults) intend to keep their first King Charles banknote as a historical souvenir or in case it becomes a collector’s item, a study reveals. Coventry Building Society exclusive reporting for This is Money.
Of the 2,000 Britons asked in Coventry, 15 per cent said they would keep the new notes when they got their hands on them to sell on eBay or at auction for more money in the future, especially if they had a serial number. ancient.
New £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes will be launched from today. King Charles is only the second monarch to appear on Bank of England banknotes after Queen Elizabeth II.
The Bank of England cannot confirm whether the CA01, HB01, EH01 or AJ01 banknotes have entered circulation today, but they are likely to do so in the coming weeks and months.
Collectors and the general public will also be able to get their hands on the new banknotes at a charity auction organized by Spink & Son on behalf of the Bank of England.
The auction will take place on June 13 for a lot of 122 £5 notes, followed by an auction of £10 notes on June 27. The £20 and £50 note auctions will take place on July 11 and July 25 respectively.
At Churchill’s £5 charity auction, the first note available, AA01 000017, sold for a whopping £4,150.
Getting a serial number lower than 20 is exceptionally rare, and it remains to be seen what the lowest number will appear on a bill at auction.
Although the lowest serial number has yet to be revealed, auctioneers Spink & Son told This is Money that it will be an unprecedented low serial number, incomparable to anything they have previously offered in more than 20 years of hosting charity auctions in name of the Bank of England. .
Arnas Savickas, director of banknotes at Spink & Son, told us: “Depending on the serial number of the banknote, it is reasonable to assume that the lowest serial number of £5 could cost between £250 and £500, while £10 and £20 notes could cost £500 and £1000 respectively So £50 could cost several thousand pounds.’
Featured: Engraver Stephen Matthews with Debbie Marriott, the bank’s chief banknote designer.
‘It is not impossible that outside of the auction someone could find banknotes with a serial number within the first million.
“Outside of the auction, someone could find a bill with a serial number as low as six figures; they could probably get one with 100,000.”
The last batch of £5 notes featuring the Queen were printed in July 2018 and the last £10 notes in December 2020, as we exclusively revealed last year.
The last £20 notes were printed a month after his death in October 2022 and the last £50 notes in April 2022.
These featured the prefixes:
• £5: 60 BC;
• £10: EM54
• £20: 45 German marks
• £50: AE80
Simon Narbeth, of Colin Narbeth & Son, said a £50 note prefixed with AE80 sold for £145, but a note must be in mint condition to sell for this amount.
For this reason, it is vital that any notes found with the first few prefixes are kept clear if you plan to sell them.
Banknotes with low denomination serial numbers are likely to find their way into the hands of the Prime Minister and Chancellor, as was the case with the low denomination serial numbers on banknotes from the latest batch of Queen Elizabeth II banknotes.
King Charles received the new banknotes from the Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, and Sarah John, Chief Cashier of the Bank of England.
Narbeth said: “The only way a Queen Elizabeth banknote with a serial number as low as AA01 000003 or AA01 000004 can come out is if Boris Johnson sells his number 3 and Rishi Sunak sells his number 4, as he obtained it when I was chancellor at the time.” .
According to Spink & Son, the usual order of receiving banknotes with the lowest serial number is the King, the designer of the banknotes and the chief cashier of the Bank of England.
Which tickets will be the most coveted?
Aside from those with exceptionally low serial numbers, other notes that will be coveted are those that have serial numbers that match collectors’ birthdays or those that have some relevance to the design of the note itself.
Olivia Collier, banknote specialist at Spink & Son, said: ‘There is particular interest in banknotes bearing the number eight in their serial number from buyers in China and Japan. Banknotes don’t just attract a national audience.
“There is a harmony that some collectors enjoy when finding bills with certain round numbers.”
Will people sell the new notes on eBay?
Some people buy notes at auction to flip them, but many of those who purchase new notes with the lower serial numbers tend to be veteran collectors.
Even if 15 percent of the population intends to hold on to the notes to resell on eBay in the hope that their value will skyrocket, experts at Spink & Son said they rarely see serial banknotes being resold online. Lower.
However, this was not the case with the new polymer Churchill £5 banknotes when they were launched in September 2016.
Many people who found £5 notes with the AA01 prefix put them on eBay and sold them for a premium.
Collier said: “Ten years is a very short period of time on the collectors’ market and there are probably an artificially high number of such notes in collections.”
“People will hold on to those AA 01 notes if they find them or buy them, because they know they are worth more than their face value, so it is very difficult to find them in circulation.”
The first new banknotes presented to King Charles on April 9
How will the British use the new banknotes?
Those aged 25 to 34 are more likely to hold onto it to sell on eBay or at auction in the future in the hope it will appreciate in value, the Coventry survey suggests.
This is also the age group most likely to retain new notes as memories.
In an era of contactless payments, 97 per cent of Britons surveyed by Coventry Building Society said they continue to use cash, with the tenner being the bill most loved by Britons. Younger age groups, particularly those aged 18-24, prefer the £20 note.
Graham Mott, chief strategy officer at LINK, said: ‘As King Charles III banknotes begin to enter circulation, they will be constantly available at all ATMs as spent banknotes are withdrawn.
“This, of course, is the first change of monarch since ATMs became a fixture on high streets, and the King is only the second reigning monarch to appear on Bank of England banknotes.”
On the day of issue, Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said: “We are very pleased to be issuing the new King Charles banknotes. This is a historic moment as it is the first time we have changed the sovereign of our banknotes.
‘We know that cash is important to many people and we are committed to providing banknotes for as long as the public demands them. Putting these new banknotes into circulation is a demonstration of that commitment.’
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