A RARE £5 note is actually worth £170 because it’s missing a tiny squiggle most would ignore.
The unusual fiver changed hands for £170 at auction.
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The £5 note is deemed to be exotic because its missing the signature that normally appears on the note.
This boosted its value to an astonishing £170.
New banknotes featuring the monarch started entering circulation last week via a number of Post Office branches.
The notes are slowly replacing ones with the late Queen Elizabeth II’s face on as they become worn out or to meet an increase in demand.
But some are worth much more than their face value due to the serial numbers they have on them.
The £5 notes entering circulation with the prefix CA 01, found on the bottom right of the note, are particularly lucrative.
Spink and Son sold off some of these £5 notes produced by the Bank of England (BoE) in a special auction.
Separate auctions for the rarest £10, £20 and £50 notes will be held on June 27, July 11 and July 24 respectively.
One of the notes, with the serial number CA 01 000003, sold for a whopping £11,000.
Meanwhile, nine other rare £5 King Charles III banknotes sold for up to £7,000.
Arnas Savickas, head of banknotes at auctioneers Spink and Son, said the most sought-after serial numbers for the four different notes will start from:
- £5: CA 01 000003
- £10: HB 01 000002
- £20: EH 01 000002
- £50: AJ 01 000003
If you land one of these serial numbers you could expect to earn potentially thousands of pounds.
Some Jane Austen £5 notes, which came out in 2017, can fetch decent sums with plenty of collectors keen on them.
Serial numbers 16 121775 and 18 071817 are particularly valuable because they are the author’s birth and death dates.
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Also, the £20 notes released in 2020 featuring artist JMW Turner, so serial numbers with his birth date – 1775 – can sell for big amounts.
If you find one starting with an A that also includes his birth date that should be worth even more.
For example, one special serial number to keep an eye out for is 1775 1851 which combines the painter’s birth and death date.