New plastic £5 note with Jane Austen engraving worth £50,000 is FOUND – by OAP who is gifting it to her granddaughter
A NEW plastic £5 note featuring an engraving of Jane Austen worth £50,000 has been found by an OAP who is gifting it to her granddaughter.
The valuable note went into circulation last week after the artist who carefully etched the author's face onto the note spent it in a cafe in South Wales.
It was today announced that it had ended up in the wallet of an elderly art fan, who wants to remain anonymous.
She has said that she isn't seeking to release its value at this stage.
Instead, she is gifting it to her granddaughter as an investment for when she grows up.
Earlier this week, it emerged that artist Graham Short had spent the special note in the Square Cafe in Blackwood, South Wales, on Friday.
He is famed for his minuscule masterpieces that can be worth tens of thousands of pounds, and specially engraved four new Bank of England polymer £5 notes.
The fiver contains a tiny portrait of novelist Jane Austen measuring just 5mm.
It was the note, with serial number: AM32 885553, engraved with: “A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.”
The 70-year-old artist painstakingly carved tiny 5mm portraits of the novelist onto the polymer cash, next to the images of Sir Winston Churchill and Big Ben.
Classic quotes from Emma, Pride and Prejudice, and Mansfield Park have also been engraved on to the rare Bank of England notes, which went into circulation last weekend.
The outline of the golden engraving is visible to the naked eye - but a microscope will be needed to see it properly.
Art experts are estimating that the four fivers could be worth up to £50,000 after collectors forked out thousands to buy fivers with unusual serial numbers earlier this year.
Graham previously hit headlines when he engraved the words of the Lord's Prayer on the head of a pin.
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His last work - a portrait of the Queen engraved on a speck of gold inside the eye of a needle - sold for £100,000.
Graham, from Northfield, Birmingham, said: "I'm always looking to do something different.
"When I saw the new £5 note, I thought, 'Wouldn't it be good if I could engrave something on it.
"I didn't know what at first, but then I found out that next year is going to be the 200th anniversary of Jane Austen's death and her image is also going to be on the new £10 note, which is coming out next year, so it ties in quite nicely with that.
"The beauty of this is that in the right light you can't see the engraving at all, but when you turn the note and the light comes at a different angle, it appears.
"I like to call it invisible engraving. I've no idea how much they will be worth if people try to sell them.
"But previous pieces I have worked on have been insured for more than £50,000."
Graham has been engraving for more than half a century after starting an apprenticeship when he left school at the age of 15.
He works at night, when traffic vibrations are lower, and uses a stethoscope to monitor his heart and engraves between beats.
Meanwhile hundreds have flocked to a small bakery in the Scottish Borders after it emerged Graham had also spent one the other three notes there at the weekend.
Two others are in circulation in England and Ireland.
The new notes were released in September, and the first off the press started making a fortune.
Fivers with the serial number AK47 have also been fetching high prices on online auctions.
Here's how to tell if your fivers are worth a mint.
With more changes to the currency in store over the next few years there should be plenty more chances to turn your change into a small fortune.
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