King Charles banknotes go for 11 times the face value
Banknotes with a face value of £78,430 have generated over 11 times that amount for charity through a series of auctions.
The new £5, £10, £20, and £50 notes featuring King Charles III entered circulation in June. He received a complete set of the first issues, each with a serial number ending in 000001, while hundreds of other low serial numbered notes were auctioned off.
One £10 note with the serial number HB01 000002 sold for £17,000 during the bidding. Another notable sale was a sheet of 40 connected £50 notes, with a face value of £2,000, which fetched £26,000, setting a record for any Bank of England auction.
In total, the four auctions conducted by Spink in London raised £914,127. Collectors are particularly interested in banknotes with serial numbers as close to 000001 as possible, driving up the auction prices.
When the notes were first released, the Post Office noted that collectors flocked to branches with available stocks, and there was a queue outside the Bank of England in London on the first day. Sarah John, the Bank’s chief cashier whose signature appears on the notes, expressed her delight at the remarkable amount raised.
The proceeds will be shared equally between 10 charities chosen by the Bank:
- Childhood Trust
- The Trussell Trust
- Shout
- Carers UK
- Demelza
- WWF-UK
- The Brain Tumour Charity
- London’s Air Ambulance Charity
- Child Bereavement UK
- The Samaritans
It is the first time the monarch has changed on Bank of England notes because Queen Elizabeth II was the first to routinely appear on Bank of England banknotes from 1960. The monarch does not feature on banknotes in Scotland.
Although the use of notes and coins is declining, the number of people mainly using cash for day-to-day spending hit a four-year high during the cost of living crisis, according to banking trade body UK Finance.
Post offices also reported handling a record amount of cash in July, with transactions totaling £3.77bn.
And HSBC has promised it will not announce any new closures of its bank branches until at least 2026.
