Nearly two weeks after their original release, new £5 notes are selling for 40 times their monetary value on online auction sites.

The notes, which carry the image of iconic wartime Prime Minister Winston Churchill, are currently being sold for up to £200 thanks to the serial number they have printed on them.

The Bank of England have announced that the latest currency will be their most innovative to date – no longer will the £5 note be made of paper, but a thin polymer instead. It’s is believed that the new ‘plastic’ notes will last around five years longer than the paper versions, as they are far more durable. Claiming to be ‘unrippable’, figures within the public eye have taken the new note as an opportunity to test the £5 note – most notably Piers Morgan on the flagship ITV show Good Morning Britain.

To showcase how the note has changed as legal tender over its years, Loans at Home have created an infographic detailing the history of the fiver, as well as highlighting everything you need to know about the Bank of England’s latest release.

It is expected that 440 million notes will be brought into circulation, but how can you tell if the new £5 note you possess is worth more?

Currency collectors are on the hunt for the notes that have the serial code that starts AA01, which signals they were printed in the very first batch. The demand for the new note is also high because collectors only want the latest release if it is in mint condition.

The first new note printed, labelled with the serial number AA01 000001, was given to the Queen herself, but collectors are looking out for notes where the six-digit number is as low as possible.

Auction site eBay has just seen two notes sell for £196 and £200 respectively – huge sums of money when compared to the actual financial value of the £5 note. It’s widely believe that AA01 000017, which is set to be auctioned off by the Bank of England for charity, is to fetch between £800 and £1,200 – up to 24,000 percent more that it’s actual worth.

Infographic source: https://www.loansathome.co.uk/your-money-guide/good-to-know/fiver-facts/