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September 15, 2008
How much for a Million £ Note?
The 8-inch-wide green banknote, numbered 000008, was issued by the Bank of England on Aug. 30, 1948, in connection with the Marshall Aid Plan in the aftermath of World War II, said the specialist auctioneers and dealers Spink in an e-mailed statement. The company said the defunct note, entered for sale by the U.K.-based banknote collector Bill Parkinson, may fetch 35,000 pounds to 40,000 pounds at its Oct. 1 sale of world banknotes.It is believed that only nine notes of this denomination were produced for internal "records of movement'' during a period of six weeks. Only numbers seven and eight -- presented as mementoes to the respective U.S. and U.K. Treasury Secretaries --are thought to have survived, said the auction house.
. . .
Faull said that though technically legal tender, the million-pound note was more of an IOU than a usable banknote.
Spink sold number 000007 through a private sale for 8,000 pounds in 1977, when the note was listed by the Guinness Book of Records as being the highest denomination in private ownership.
"We would have sold it at auction, but the Bank of England asked us to sell it privately because it didn't want the publicity,'' said Faull. "It was horrified there was a million- pound note still in private hands.''
Then there's the Gregory Peck movie, based on the Mark Twain short story.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at September 15, 2008 7:35 PM