New £10 polymer note already being flogged on eBay ahead of entering official circulation

Several dozen offers to pre-order the new tenner were listed on the UK version of the platform on Wednesday morning. Prices ranged from just above £10 to over £25

Josie Cox
Business Editor
Wednesday 13 September 2017 11:26 BST
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Earlier this week experts already said that the new notes, adorned with Jane Austen’s face, could be worth significantly more than £10
Earlier this week experts already said that the new notes, adorned with Jane Austen’s face, could be worth significantly more than £10

Vendors on eBay are already pre-selling the new polymer £10 note, even though it does not officially come into circulation until Thursday.

Several dozen offers to pre-order the new tenner were listed on the UK version of the platform on Wednesday morning. Prices ranged from just above £10 to over £25.

Sellers are offering the opportunity to pre-order notes with particularly low serial numbers, or packs of multiple notes with consecutive serial numbers.

Earlier this week experts already said that some of the new notes, adorned with Jane Austen’s face, could be worth significantly more than £10.

According to website Change Checker, those with serial numbers corresponding to the author’s date of birth and date of death – 16 121775 and 18 071817 – are likely to be in particularly high demand.

The note with the serial number 17 751817 – the author's birth and death year combined – could also fetch a significant sum.

The Bank of England is due to hold an official auction on 6 October, where members of the public and collectors can bid for a selection of notes, including special serial numbers of the new £10 note.

The Bank has not commented on how much the auction might raise, but a similar auction last year, which included new polymer £5 notes with low and interesting serial numbers, raised a total of £194,500. More than 230 lots were sold at the time and the highest bid for a single note was £8,500.

Proceeds from that auction were split between three charities -- The Myotubular Trust, The Lily Foundation and Bliss – chosen by the Bank of England. Proceeds from next month’s auction will also go to charity, the Bank of England said.

The design of the tenner that enters circulation this week was unveiled in July. At the time it was particularly praised by members of the blind and visually impaired community for its tactile features. Raised dots, similar to braille characters, on the left hand side of the note and fine raised lines on the right, will help those who can’t see to differentiate it from notes of other denominations.

“I’m absolutely delighted with the new ten pound note. The tactile feature on it makes it very simple for someone with sight loss like myself to know it’s definitely a £10 note,” 48-year old Ian Morris from Portsmouth, who is blind and gets around with the help of a guide dog, said this week.

“The non-vision impaired community may see the introduction of an inclusive £10 note as something minor, but it’s another area where I can organise my own life without having to rely on sighted help.”

When the note enters circulation, Austen will be the only woman apart from the Queen to appear on a current UK bank note. The old £5 note, featuring prison reformer Elizabeth Fry, ceased being legal tender on 5 May.

It will be the second to be printed on a plastic polymer, which the Bank has said is cleaner, safer and more hard-wearing than the traditional cotton paper it will replace. The plastic fiver, featuring Winston Churchill, entered circulation last September.

Speaking at the launch of the new £10 note at Winchester Cathedral, where Ms Austen was buried, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney in July said the author, “certainly merits a place in the select group of historical figures to appear on our bank notes”.

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