Posts Tagged ‘Bank of England’
Will next year’s new £10 note be vegan?
It came to light earlier this week that the new plastic fivers that entered circulation to much fanfare in September, are actually made using tallow, a substance produced from animal fat.
The news sparked an online petition calling for the production process behind the notes to be changed and so far it has attracted more than 116,000 signatures.
The Bank of England has also received angry calls from vegans and vegetarians to cease the use of these banknotes immediately and change the substance used in the production of currency that they have to use in everyday life.
The petition was started by Doug Maw who states that the animal fat contained in the £5 notes is unacceptable to millions of vegans, vegetarians, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and many others in the UK.
The new £5 notes were released into circulation in September and caused a collecting frenzy!
This news has also been taken extremely seriously by a Hindu temple in Leicester who have urged worshippers not to give new five pound notes in donations.
So how many cows will actually need to be sacrificed to make all these new fivers?
VICE have put together a ‘very precise calculation’ of how many animals will be slaughtered in order to make the 329 million banknotes likely to be in circulation by the time the paper banknotes have been phased out!
Any guesses?
The answer: Just over half of one cow.
So will next year’s new £10 note be vegan?
Most likely.
Mark Carney, Governor of the Bank of England has stated that they are treating concerns about traces of tallow in the new polymer banknote with the utmost seriousness but also that the bank did not know about the issue when the it signed the contract for the notes.
Innovia, the company who make the polymer are already working towards potential solutions for the tallow substance which is also used in household items such as candles and soap.
This £5 banknote just sold for £4,150!
One of the new polymer £5 banknotes featuring Winston Churchill recently sold for a whopping £4,150 at a Bank of England charity auction on Monday 3rd October.
The banknote was only expected to fetch £800-£1200 at the charity event but it actually went for 830 times its face value!
This banknote sold for an extraordinary £4,150 at the charity auction.
Just last month we reported that banknotes with the serial number beginning with AA01 were selling online for hundreds of pounds. The banknotes which were released into circulation on September 13th are still catching the public’s attention with collectors looking to keep hold of the notes while they are still in good condition.
The first batch of banknotes from the presses carry a serial number starting AA01, followed by a six-digit number. There are 999,999 new fivers with the AA01 prefix and these are the ones selling for vast sums.
Winston Churchill features on the new Polymer £5 Banknotes
The £5 note was lot one at the event held in London and carried the serial number AA01 000017, making it the lowest available to the public according to auctioneers Spink.
A lot of bids came through online and it is thought that a lot of interest in these banknotes came from across the pond because Churchill was a well-known face over in the US.
The Bank of England Charity event raised a total of £203,820 with the money going to three worthy charities which were chosen by staff at the Bank of England.
A total of 601 banknotes were up for sale at the event and every banknote sold well over its estimate sale price.
Check your FIVER now – it could be worth £100+
Last week the Bank of England launched its first ever plastic banknote. And they are already fetching HUNDREDS of pounds online.
An Ebay listing of an AA Serial number Banknote with bids in excess of £100
The notes have already proved popular with the public, but now they might even be worth a LOT more than £5.
The new £5 notes are printed on Polymer – a thin and flexible plastic material. This means that these new notes are cleaner, safer and stronger than paper notes and feature added security features.
Polymer £5 Banknotes were released into circulation last week
Now’s the time to check your fiver to see if you have one of the first notes to be printed!
The first banknotes to be printed will carry a serial number starting with AA01 and will then be followed by a six-digit number.
The serial number of the first note printed is AA01 000001 which was given as a gift to the Queen.
440million of the notes have been printed and distribution into banks and cash machines is expected to be completed by the end of next week. There are 999,999 new fivers with the AA01 prefix, so you never know, there’s still a chance to find one with a special serial number.
On 3rd October, the Bank of England is auctioning off a batch of low serial number banknotes. The lowest number Bank of England polymer £5 available to the public is expected to fetch a staggering £800 – £1200 at the charity event.
This banknote is expected to fetch between £800 and £1200 for charity
So dig out that brand new fiver you’ve been keeping safe and see if you’ve won the low serial number lottery! You could be carrying a fortune around in your wallet!