Buyer of rare £5 note belonging to Telford man fails to pay £60,000 they bid on eBay
The buyer of a rare £5 note that fetched £60,100 has failed to pay up after bidding on an internet auction site.
Seller Piotr Sobczuk, from Telford, listed the new polymer note on eBay after finding it in his change. He researched serial numbers before realising his note – with the number AA01 444444 – was worth thousands.
Despite selling the crumpled fiver for more than 12,000 times its street value after attracting 136 bids he has not seen a penny.
Now he has placed it back on the market on the same website, but not in the auction. The note is now under the 'buy it now' listing for £20,000 with just under two dozen people 'watching' the sale unfold. If receives an offer Mr Sobczuk can simply sell it and offers can be made in secret.
The auction site will also take more than £250 in fees, according to eBay’s fee calculator. At a Bank of England charity auction in October, one new fiver sold for £4,150. The note, with serial number AA01 000017, was the lowest number offered to the public. The lowest numbered note, AA01 000001, was given as a gift to the Queen.
Many examples of the new £5 note have been stuck up for sale on auction sites, and people across the country have been checking numbers when they get them in banks and shops to see if they are the lucky finder of one of the valuable notes.
Jesse McClure, who stars in TV series Storage Hunters, secured Lot four at the Bank of England auction, a five pound note carrying the serial number AA01 000020 for £1,200. He said he had since been offered £7,000 for it.
The Bank of England had already spent £46 million on printing the £5 note featuring Winston Churchill, and printed 275 million new £10 notes featuring Jane Austen at the cost of £24m ready for the summer and after an investigation said it noted people’s concerns but has no plans to change them.
