AK47 £5 notes have high initial collector demand due to the machine gun reference, with early sales hitting high figures (like an £80k eBay bid, though likely fake), but real value has since dropped significantly to a modest premium, often just a few pounds over face value, unless they have other rare features like a low serial number (e.g., AA01) or micro-engravings, notes with both AK47 and 007 (James Bond) are more desirable.
The very rare £5 note could be worth a considerable sum
Micro-engraver Graham Short produced ten distinctive £5 notes in 2016. Each featured minuscule portraits, with every note carrying an insurance value of a huge £50,000. The initial collection featured four notes which displayed an engraving of Jane Austen.
A Winston Churchill banknote with the serial number 'AK37 007' sold on eBay for £5,000 earlier this year. The 'James Bond' fiver was described in the listing (pictured below) as being in "excellent condition" with the "faintest creases". A note with the same serial number also sold for £5,000 last October.
Six £5 notes, each worth an eye-watering £50,000, are currently in circulation around the UK. These special notes have been engraved with a portrait of Harry Kane, the England football team captain, commemorating the 2018 FIFA World Cup where England reached the semi-finals.
Other note-able fivers
The ones first off the press with the AA codes, particularly AA01, which have been selling for several hundred pounds. Ones with quirky numbers, such as AK47 have been listed for as much as £160,000 but most have been selling for about £100.
Australian 5 pound notes were issued from 1913 up until they were replaced in 1966. Some notes can be particularly valuable with the right serial numbers or if in mint condition, reaching up to $22,000 for the rarest notes.
Out of the Brilliant Uncirculated £5 coins sold in individual The Royal Mint Packs, the 2014 Queen Anne £5 is the rarest. This coin has a mintage of just 12,181 and was struck to mark the 300th anniversary since the death of Queen Anne.
Yes. You can exchange up to £300 of paper banknotes in any £5, £10, £20 and £50 denominations of the last series at participating branches within any two-year period. Our system will let you know if you've reached the £300 limit.
The Bank of England has printed 440 milion new £5 banknotes prefixes AA to AM. 60 million of each prefix. All prefixes are common.
Collectible notes should only be handled with clean hands, and clean cotton gloves are even better, especially when handling high-value notes. The more a note is handled, the more likely it is to become contaminated with skin oils, dirt and other impuritieslike hand lotions, sweat and peanut butter.
And some can really scale the heights at auction. Just last month a £100 note sold for £38,000. A fiver was valued at £32,000 at auction in 2022. Here are five ways to check if your old banknotes are worth taking to a dealer.
Coins worth over $1 million are typically extremely rare historical U.S. gold and silver coins (like the 1933 Double Eagle or 1794 Flowing Hair Dollar) or modern ultra-rare novelties (like the 100kg Canadian Gold Maple Leaf) with few known examples, often due to minting errors, historical significance, or extreme scarcity, with sales reaching tens of millions.
A specific type of misprinted $1 bill from the 2013 Series, particularly in matching pairs, can be worth up to $150,000 to collectors, due to an error where millions were printed with duplicate serial numbers. To identify one, check for a "Series 2013" date near George Washington's photo, a "B" Federal Reserve seal, and a serial number ending in a star (★) within specific ranges (e.g., B00000001★ - B00250000★).
7 Most Rare Pennies — and What Makes Them Unique
50p Scarcity Index
Despite the 2023 Salmon 50p overtaking the Kew Gardens 50p as the rarest 50p in circulation with a mintage of just 200,000, this actually means that collectors will be less likely to want to part with it, so very few swaps have taken place. The 2023 Salmon 50p is now the rarest UK 50p in circulation!
The Rare 2022 £1 Coin
The Royal Mint recently confirmed that only 7.735 million £1 coins dated 2022 have been released into circulation. That makes this the rarest £1 coin currently in use, and collectors are already taking notice.
The number 786 is considered to be lucky, many collectors like collecting notes with this series appearing on the serial numbers. Now, the choice is yours, apply all kinds of logic, permutations and combinations and make your own fancy number note collection.
Follow these simple steps to check whether your banknotes are genuine. There is a hologram on the foil patch on the front of the £5 note. If you tilt the note, the image will change between a brightly coloured picture of Britannia and the number 5.
If your note or coin has the number 786 on it, then you can auction it online for prices between INR 3-4 lakh. This demand has surged in recent times and specifically for this number as it is considered auspicious in various religions such as Islam and Hinduism.
The rare Australian coin that sells for around $60,000 (or more, depending on condition) is the 1930 Australian Penny, an accidentally minted coin from the Great Depression era with a very low mintage, making it a "numismatic superstar" sought by collectors for its rarity and historical significance. Its value comes from being the lowest mintage pre-decimal Australian coin, with only about 1,500 believed to exist in circulation, notes 9News.com.au and Network Ten.
OTHER VALUABLE NOTES
Some Jane Austen £5 notes, which came out in 2017, can fetch decent sums, with plenty of collectors keen on them. Serial numbers 16 121775 and 18 071817 are particularly valuable because they are the author's birth and death dates. What a beauty of a coin!