From today, new banknotes featuring King Charles III will come into circulation for the first time.
The new polymer notes replace those of the late Queen Elizabeth II and are the culmination of an extraordinary achievement in design, logistics and planning ten years in the making.
King Charles III will be only the second monarch to appear on Bank of England banknotes, the first being Queen Elizabeth II in 1960.
Although the notes entering circulation on June 5, 2024 will feature a new portrait of the monarch, the back of each note will remain unchanged.
And today This is Money can reveal the prefixes and serial numbers of the first £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes printed with the King on them.
Treasure Hunt: This is Money may reveal the first prefixes of King Charles notes entering circulation today
Each banknote has its own unique serial number to identify and date it with a four-digit prefix. For each prefix, 999,000 notes are printed, from 000001 to 999000.
The Bank of England has shared with This is Money the lowest serial numbers printed on the new King Charles notes for the four different banknote denominations.
The Bank of England has confirmed that the first printed serial numbers are:
• £5: CA 01 000001
• £10: HB 01 000001
• £20: EH 01 000001
• £50: AJ 01 000001
But you won’t find any notes with these serial numbers.
That’s because 000001 notes are now in the hands of the King himself.
The Bank of England confirmed that His Majesty received one of each denomination on April 9.
A Bank of England spokesperson said: ‘These banknotes are a continuation of our polymer series and the serial numbers follow the last printed banknotes featuring Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.’
However, if you come into possession of a banknote with one of these prefixes and an early serial number, you will find that it is worth much more than its face value.
This is what happened in 2016, when This is Money revealed that the very first AA01 polymer £5 notes featuring Sir Winston Churchill changed hands for huge sums of money, sparking a nationwide treasure hunt.
For this reason, more than a third of Britons – equivalent to around 20 million adults – plan to keep their first King Charles note as a historical memento or in case it becomes collectible, an exclusive report from Coventry Building has found Society for This is Money.
Of the 2,000 Britons Coventry surveyed, 15 percent said they would keep the new banknotes if they sold them on eBay or at auction for more money in the future, especially if they had an early serial number.
New £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes are being rolled out from today. King Charles is only the second monarch to appear on Bank of England banknotes after Queen Elizabeth II
The Bank of England cannot confirm whether the CA01, HB01, EH01 or AJ01 banknotes have entered circulation today. It is likely that they will enter circulation in the coming weeks and months.
Collectors and the general public can also get their hands on the new banknotes at a charity auction organized by Spink & Son on behalf of the Bank of England.
The auction will take place on June 13 for a lot of 122 £5 notes, followed by an auction for £10 notes on June 27. The £20 and £50 pound banknote auctions will take place on July 11 and July 25 respectively.
At the Churchill £5 charity auction, the first available note – AA01 000017 – sold for a huge £4,150.
It is exceptionally rare to get a serial number under 20 – and it remains to be seen what the lowest number will be that will appear on a note in the auction.
Although the lowest serial number has yet to be revealed, auctioneer Spink & Son told This is Money that it will be an unprecedentedly low serial number, unrivaled by anything they have previously offered in the more than 20 years of running charity auctions on behalf of the Bank of England . .
Arnas Savickas, head of banknotes at Spink & Son, told us: ‘Depending on the serial number of the note, it is reasonable to assume that the lowest serial number of £5 could fetch between £250 and £500, while £10 and £ 500 can yield. £20 notes can cost £500 and £1,000 respectively. A £50 could then yield several thousand pounds.’
Noted: Engraver Stephen Matthews with Debbie Marriott, the Bank’s principal banknote designer
‘It is not impossible that someone outside the auction could find banknotes with a serial number within the first million.
“Outside the auction, someone might be able to find a note with a serial number of only six digits. You’ll probably get one with 100,000.’
The last series of £5 notes featuring the Queen were printed in July 2018 and the last £10 notes in December 2020, as we exclusively revealed last year.
The last £20 notes were printed a month after her death in October 2022 and the last £50 notes in April 2022.
These characterized the prefixes:
• £5: BC60;
• £10: EM54
• £20: DM45
• £50: AE80
Simon Narbeth of Colin Narbeth & Son said a £50 note with the AE80 prefix sold for £145, but a note must be in perfect condition to sell for this amount.
For this reason, it is vital that any notes found with the early prefixes remain sharp if you plan to sell it.
Notes with low denomination serial numbers are likely to end up in the hands of the Prime Minister and Chancellor, as was the case with low denomination serial numbers on the banknotes of Queen Elizabeth II’s last batch of notes.
King Charles received the new banknotes from the Governor of the Bank of England, Andrew Bailey, and Sarah John, the chief cashier of the English bank.
Narbeth said: ‘The only way a note from Queen Elizabeth with a serial number as low as AA01 000003 or AA01 000004 can get out is if Boris Johnson sells his number 3 and Rishi Sunak sells his number 4 as he got it when he was Chancellor at the time. .
The usual order for receiving banknotes with the lowest serial number, according to Spink & Son, is the king, the designer of the banknotes and the chief cashier at the Bank of England.
Which banknotes will be most coveted?
Aside from the notes with exceptionally low serial numbers, other notes that will be coveted are those with serial numbers that correspond to collectors’ birthdays, or notes that have some relevance to the design of the note itself.
Olivia Collier, banknote specialist at Spink & Son, said: ‘There is particular interest in banknotes with the number eight in their serial number from buyers in China and Japan. It is not just a domestic audience that collects the banknotes.
“There is a harmony that some collectors enjoy when finding banknotes with certain round numbers.”
Will people sell the new notes on eBay?
Some people buy notes at auction to flip them, but many of those who buy new notes with the lowest serial numbers tend to be experienced collectors.
Even though 15 percent of the population plans to keep the notes and resell them on eBay in the hope that they will skyrocket in value, experts at Spink & Son say they rarely see resale of the very lowest serial notes online.
However, this was not the case with the new polymer £5 Churchill notes when they were launched in September 2016.
Many people who found £5 notes with the prefix AA01 placed them on eBay and sold them for a higher price
Collier said: ’10 years is a very short time in the collector market and there is probably an artificially high number of those notes in collections.’
‘People will keep those AA 01 notes when they find them or pass by because they know they are worth more than their face value – so it’s very difficult to find them in circulation.’
The very first new banknotes presented to King Charles on April 9
How will the British use the new banknotes?
People aged 25 to 34 are likely to stick with selling it on eBay or at auction in the future, hoping it will rise in value, the Coventry research suggests.
This is also the age group most likely to keep the new banknotes as memorabilia.
In an era of contactless payments, 97 percent of Britons surveyed by Coventry Building Society said they would continue to use cash, with the tenner being Britons’ most favored banknote. Younger age groups – especially those aged 18 to 24 – prefer the £20 note
Graham Mott, director of strategy at LINK, said: ‘As the King Charles III banknotes come into circulation, they will be steadily available through all ATMs, while worn-out banknotes are withdrawn.
‘This is of course the first change to monarchy since cash machines became a fixture on the high street, and the King is only the second reigning monarch to appear on Bank of England notes.’
Speaking on the day of issue, Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said: ‘We are very pleased to be issuing the new King Charles notes. This is a historic moment as it is the first time we have changed the sovereign on our banknotes.
“We know that cash is important to many people, and we aim to provide banknotes for as long as the public demands them. Putting these new banknotes into circulation is a demonstration of that commitment.”
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