Bank notes

A book of specimen banknotes printed for locations across the world has set a house record for Tring Market Auctions (17.5% buyer’s premium) by selling for £205,000.

Coin dealership Coincraft has welcomed four new members of staff and launched a new website.

Plastic money has been a bone of contention recently thanks to the strange revelation that the new UK £5 notes include animal fat. But one day the polymer notes will surely be as normal and accepted as the existing paper examples, assuming physical money has not all but disappeared anyway by then.

The excitement around the new polymer fivers, which were launched by the Bank of England last month, helped boost interest in new and old £5 notes for philatelic and numismatic specialists Spink.

Auction specialists in Australia have found a rare Ming Dynasty banknote hidden within a Chinese wooden sculpture. The discovery came at Mossgreen as they were cataloguing the extensive collection of Raphy Star – one of the most important collections of Asian art ever to be offered in the country.

The man himself may have disappeared in 1974 but a series of cheques showing Lord Lucan’s spiralling gambling debts have now emerged and will be offered at auction later this month.

The highest denomination note issued by the Bank of England, this £1000 banknote is a rare survivor of a limited run that was cut short as the Nazis tried to destabilise the British economy.

The big question at David Lay’s auctioneers in Penzance next week: Are these bonds worth a few hundred pounds or up to £3.6m each?

It has a face value of ten shillings but a price tag of Aus$3.5m (£2.3m) at Coinworks, the specialist dealers and auctioneers of Melbourne.

Recent years have seen a massive increase in the offerings and prices realised by banknotes.

AFTER 2010 saw the London market grow by a third it would have been a bold commentator to predict a further substantial rise in 2011. Nonetheless, coins and medals auctions in the capital saw totals rise by almost a quarter on the previous year.

FROM 30 June, the £20 banknote carrying the portrait of composer Sir Edward Elgar is to be finally withdrawn from circulation.