Coin Info
Is your £50 note about to expire?
If you’re lucky enough to have a stash of £50 notes tucked away in your mattress, you may want to dig them out and check if they’ll still be worth anything in a few months.
The Bank of England has announced that the old-style £50 notes which have been around for nearly 20 years will be soon be removed from circulation, and can only be used up until 30th April this year.
The note in question features Sir John Houblon who was the Bank of England’s very first governor. It was first issued in April 1994 and it’s estimated there are still 63 million of them in circulation.
The decision comes following a review of the note’s ability to withstand fraud. From May onwards, only the £50 banknote featuring entrepreneur Matthew Boulton and engineer James Watt will hold legal tender status and any institution is within their rights to refuse the old-style notes.
The Boulton and Watt note was the first to include a green ‘motion thread’ which has five windows featuring the pound symbol and the number 50 which moves when the note is tilted from side to side. The two men appear on the new note partly because of the integral role they had in manufacturing coins which were more difficult to counterfeit.
Exchange before 30th April
In a video placed on YouTube, Victoria Cleland, head of notes division at the Bank, advises: “If you have any Houblon £50 notes, it’s best to spend, deposit or exchange them before 30 April.”
However, there’s no need to panic just yet; Barclays, Natwest, RBS, Ulster Bank and the Post Office have agreed to exchange any older-style £50 notes for customers and non-customers up to the value of £200 until 30th October.
FAQs
More details about the withdrawal have been included on a poster issued by the Bank of England should you have any queries or concerns.
Your Country Needs You – The secret behind the poster
New research has revealed Lord Kitchener was never used for the WWI recruitment campaign
Lord Kitchener has been revealed as the subject of the first design in a five year commemorative series which marks the centenary of the First World War. For nearly one hundred years his distinctive image with a finger pointing firmly at the reader has been credited as part of the patriotic call for enlistment following the declaration of war in 1914.
However in his new book Your Country Needs You, James Taylor has traced the image back to its true origins and discovered that it was never actually used as part of a recruitment campaign.
Mr Taylor, a former Victorian paintings specialist, studied records showing nearly 200 official recruitment posters used during the First World War, and Kitchener’s iconic image was a notable absentee.
Graphic artist Alfred Leete created the image using a portrait of Kitchener and adapted it to give him the distinctive pointing finger. It featured on the front cover of London Opinion magazine in 1914, but was never used for official recruitment purposes. The original artwork was then acquired by the Imperial War Museum in 1917 and was mistakenly catalogued as part of the poster collection, which contributed to confusion over its use.
The famous slogan Your Country Needs You was in fact adapted from the official call to arms which was Your King and Country Needs You.
As Mr Taylor comments; “There has been a mass, collective misrecollection. The image’s influence is now totally out of all kilter with the reality of its initial impact. It has taken on a new kind of life. So many historians and books have used it and kept repeating how influential it was, that people have come to accept it”
In truth, whether or not this iconic image was widely used for military recruitment is not as important as the resonance which it still has with the general public. This year we will see Lord Kitchener on one of the most striking £2 coins designs in recent times, and you can be sure you won’t want to spent it when you find one!
Coins with such historical significance are usually hoarded by eagle-eyed collectors, and now you can collect this £2 straight from your change with the FREE Change Checker 2014 Collecting Pack.
Click here to claim your FREE pack.
Are there valuable coins in your pocket?
Although the UK has an enviable record for producing coins of impeccable quality, there has been the odd occasion in the past where a ‘mistake’ has managed to get into circulation. Here are my top three favourites, and if you own one, you can consider yourself very lucky indeed!
1. 1983 Two ‘New’ Pence
When the UK switched to decimal coinage in 1971, it was decided to include the word ‘new’ in the denomination on some of our coins to help differentiate the old from the new. By 1982 the coins were no longer new so the word was dropped, and the 2p design changed from ‘New Pence’ to ‘Two Pence’. However, a mistake was made and a small number of 1983 coins were struck with the inscription ‘New Pence’. Recently a handful have emerged on Ebay for around £100, and a perfect example of the coin is catalogued at £600.
2. 2011 Aquatics 50p
The series of twenty-nine 50ps issued for the Olympic Games have become some of the most sought after UK decimal coins ever issued. But one coin could actually be rarer than 
the others. The Aquatics 50p was initially struck with the impression of the athlete underwater (see left coin) – but this was swiftly changed to make the swimmer’s face clearer (coin on the right). None appear to have recorded an officially catalogued selling price yet, but when they do this ‘error’ coin could end up as the most valuable of the lot.
3. The Undated 20p
We often get comments on our Facebook page about people who have found an undated 20p. It has to be one of the most talked about ‘mules’ of the decade – where the obverse and the reverse of a coin don’t match. The result of this mistake led to the first ‘undated’ UK coin for over 300 years – and 200,000 of them made it into circulation. However, banks and The Royal Mint swiftly tried to withdraw them, so many will have been destroyed – but a handful will undoubtedly remain. Initial hysteria led to some crazy prices being quoted for this coin, but in the future when the market has settled down it could well be one of the most sought after definitive pieces of the early 21st century.
Special mention: The Edward VIII Threepence
Now you won’t find this in your change, but if your grandparents have some coins at the back of the cupboard it might be worth having a quick look through in case a King Edward VIII Threepence is hiding there. Famously the King abdicated before any coins bearing his image could be struck, but a handful of 3d coins were produced as test pieces. Some of them made their way into private hands, and one recently came up at auction for £30,000!
Suffice to say, it’s worth keeping an eye on your change, as you may well have an error coin in your pocket that hasn’t even been discovered yet! And if you do, there’s every chance you could be quids in!
Want to start your own collection?
You can find, collect and even swap all of the UK’s commemorative circulating coins with Change Checker – take a look at the app here: www.changechecker.org