Check your wallets and piggy banks as £5 notes with certain serial numbers, errors and printing mistakes have been selling for a small fortune online as collectors take to the internet
Brits are being urged to check their wallets for rare £5 notes that could be worth a whopping fortune.
In recent months, rare coin collectors have been eyeing up certain designs which come with a high value. Previously, people were urged to check for a rare penny coin worth £200,000 which went viral on TikTok.
Now as social media is buzzing with special gems, it turns out eBay users are also finding some hidden fortune. Collectors have been scouring the internet for £5 notes with particular serial numbers – as they stash them away in the hope they’ll up their value.
It led to an influx in £5 notes being sold on eBay and other online marketplaces. Among the sought-after notes are those with the ‘AA01’ prefix, signifying they’re from the very first batch to ever be produced. However, these are not the only £5 notes catching attention online as those with the serial code AK47 are currently on sale for between £1,000 and £20,000.
Meanwhile, it’s not just the serial numbers you need to keep an eye out for, however, as there’s a handful of limited edition £5 notes stamped with a Jane Austin engraving also in circulation. These rare notes could be worth as much as £20,000 – with bidders willing to pay as much as a house deposit for the prized possession.
New £5 notes with King Charles on have also started appearing on eBay for between £500 and £1,300 – with claims they include errors and misprints. Banknotes featuring a portrait of King Charles III were first issued on 5 June 2024. Those featuring the portrait of Queen Elizabeth II will remain legal tender and are co-circulating alongside King Charles III notes.
A statement from the Bank of England reads: “The portrait of the King appears on existing designs of all four banknotes (£5, £10, £20, and £50), with no other changes to the existing designs. This means you can check these notes in the same way you can check our polymer banknotes featuring Queen Elizabeth II.
“New King Charles III banknotes will only be printed to replace those that are worn and to meet any overall increase in demand for banknotes. Our approach is in line with guidance from the Royal Household, to minimise the environmental and financial impact of this change.”
According to an expert, you should also be checking your £1 coins as there’s a batch out there with two different dates on them, increasing their value to collectors.
One expert, known online as the Coin Collector UK, took to social media platform TikTok to explain exactly what to look for. He said: “£2,500 if you manage to find this error on your 12 sided £1 coin. There are a few errors that can be found on your £1 coins. The main ones you want to be looking for is the dual dated £1 coin.”
He demonstrated what to look for using a normal £1 coin from 2016. “So you can see, when we flip this over on the obverse side this is a 2016 version of the £1 coin,” he said. “However some were made with the micro-lettering on the side with the date 2017. It is an extremely rare error. We only know of one that’s actually being sold to a buyer in Spain, and this sold for £2,500.”
The expert continued: “Here’s a close-up of exactly all you want to be looking out for. You can see here the date 2017 around the edge in micro-lettering on every side.” The expert advised using a microscope to check for the error.
“If you are going to look out for this error in your change then you’ll probably need a microscope because the micro-lettering on the edges is extremely fine and very very hard to see,” he added. “Definitely worth checking if you have the 2016 dated coin on the Queen’s head side, for the micro-lettering on the reverse side for the date 2017.”
