Look out for these King Charles £5, £10 and £20 be aware serial numbers

New bank notes featuring King Charles III will enter circulation for the first time from today.

The new polymer notes replace those featuring the late Queen Elizabeth II and are the culmination of an extraordinary feat of design, logistics and planning 10 years in the making.

King Charles III will be only the second monarch to appear on Bank of England bank notes, the first being Queen Elizabeth II in 1960.    

Although the notes that enter circulation on 5 June 2024 will feature a new portrait of the monarch, the reverse side of each note remains unchanged.

And today, This is Money can reveal the prefixes and serial numbers of the first £5, £10, £20 and £50 notes featuring the King that were printed.

Every banknote features its own unique serial number to identify and date it with a four digit prefix. For each prefix, there are 999,000 notes printed, from 000001 to 999000.

The Bank of England has shared with This is Money the lowest serial numbers printed on the new King Charles notes for the four different banknote denominations.

The Bank of England has confirmed that the first printed serial numbers are:

• £5: CA 01 000001 

• £10: HB 01 000001

• £20: EH 01 000001

• £50: AJ 01 000001

But you will not find any notes containing these serial numbers.

That is because 000001 notes are now in the hands of the King himself. 

The Bank of England confirmed that His Majesty was presented with one of each denomination on 9 April.

A spokesman for the Bank of England said: ‘These notes are a continuation of our polymer series and the serial numbers follow on from the last printed banknotes featuring Her late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.’

However, if you come into possession of a note featuring one of these prefixes, with an early serial number, you may find it is worth far more than its face value.

This is what happened in 2016, when This is Money revealed that the very first AA01 polymer £5 notes, featuring Sir Winston Churchill, were changing hands for huge sums of money, creating a countrywide treasure hunt. 

For this very reason, more than a third of Britons – equivalent to around 20million adults – intend to keep their first King Charles note as a historical memento or in case it becomes collectable, an exclusive report from Coventry Building Society for This is Money reveals.

Of 2,000 Britons Coventry asked, 15 per cent said they will hold onto the new notes when they get their hands on them to sell on eBay or at an auction for more money in the future, especially if they have an early serial number.

The Bank of England cannot confirm if the CA01, HB01, EH01 or AJ01 notes have entered circulation today, it is likely they will work their way into circulation in the coming weeks and months. 

Collectors and the general public can also get their hands on the new bank notes at a charity auction hosted by Spink & Son on behalf of the Bank of England.

The auction will take place on 13 of June for a lot of 122 £5 notes, followed by an auction for £10 notes on 27 June. The £20 and £50 pound note auctions will take place on 11 July and 25 July respectively.

At the £5 Churchill charity auction, the first note available – AA01 000017 – sold for a huge £4,150.

To get any serial number below 20 is exceptionally rare – and it remains to be seen what the lowest number to feature on a note in the auction will be.

Although the lowest serial number is yet to be revealed, auctioneers Spink & Son told This is Money it will be an unprecedentedly low serial number, unmatched by anything they have previously offered in over 20 years of hosting charity auctions on behalf of the Bank of England.

Arnas Savickas, head of banknotes at Spink & Son, told us: ‘Depending on the serial number of the note – it’s reasonable to assume that the lowest serial number of a £5 could fetch between £250 to £500, while £10 and £20 notes could go for £500 and £1,000 respectively. A £50 then could go for several thousand pounds.’

‘It’s not impossible that outside of the auction, someone could find notes with a serial number within the first million.

‘Outside of the auction, someone could potentially find a note with a serial number as low as six figures – you could probably get one with 100000.’

The last batch of £5 notes featuring the Queen was printed in July 2018 and the last £10 notes in December 2020, as we exclusively revealed last year.

The final £20 notes were printed a month after her death in October 2022 and the last £50 notes in April 2022.

These featured the prefixes:

• £5: BC60;

• £10: EM54

• £20: DM45

• £50: AE80

Simon Narbeth, of Colin Narbeth & Son, said a £50 note with the prefix AE80 sold for £145, but a note must be in mint condition to sell for this much.

For this reason, it’s vital that any notes found with the early prefixes are kept crisp, if you plan to sell it. 

Notes with low denomination serial numbers will likely find their way into the hands of the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, as was the case with low denomination serial numbers on notes of the last batch of Queen Elizabeth II notes.

Narbeth said: ‘The only way a Queen Elizabeth note with a serial number as low as AA01 000003 or AA01 000004 can come out is if Boris Johnson sells his number 3 and Rishi Sunak sells his number 4 as he got this as he was Chancellor then.

The usual order of receiving the lowest serial number bank notes is the King, the designer of the banknotes and the chief cashier at the Bank of England, according to Spink & Son.

Which notes will be the most coveted?

Apart from those with exceptionally low serial numbers, other notes which will be coveted are those which have serial numbers matching collectors’ birthdays or those which have some relevance to the design of the note itself.

Olivia Collier, Banknote Specialist at Spink & Son said: ‘The is a particular interest in notes which carry the number eight in their serial number from buyers in China and Japan. It’s not just a domestic audience the bank notes garner.

‘There is a harmony some collectors enjoy in finding notes with certain round numbers.’

Will people sell the new notes on eBay?

Some people buy notes at auction to flip them but many of those who acquire new notes with the lowest serial numbers are usually veteran collectors.

Even if 15 per cent of the population are intent on keeping the notes to re-sell on eBay hoping they will skyrocket in value, experts at Spink & Son said they rarely see the resale of the very lowest serial notes online.

This was not the case with the new polymer £5 Churchill notes when they launched in September 2016 though.

A lot of people who found £5 notes with the prefix AA01 put them up on eBay and sold them for a premium

Collier said: ’10 years is a very short amount of time in the collectors market and there is probably an artificially high number of those notes in collections.’

‘People are going to keep those AA 01 notes if they find them or come by them as they know they are worth more than their face value – so it is very hard to find them in circulation.’

How will Britons use the new bank notes?

Those aged 25 to 34 are most likely to keep it to sell on eBay or at an auction in the future with the hope it will appreciate in value, the Coventry survey suggests. 

This is also the age group most likely to keep the new notes as memorabilia.

In an era of contactless payments, 97 per cent of Britons asked by Coventry Building Society said they continue to use cash, with the tenner being the best loved note of Britons. Younger age groups – particularly those aged 18-24 – favour the £20 note

Graham Mott, director of strategy at LINK said: ‘As King Charles III banknotes begin to enter circulation, they will steadily be available through all cash machines as worn notes are withdrawn.

‘This of course is the first change in monarch since ATMs became a fixture on the high street, and the King is only the second reigning monarch to appear on Bank of England notes.’

Speaking on issue day, the Bank of England’s Governor Andrew Bailey said: ‘We’re very pleased to be issuing the new King Charles banknotes. This is a historic moment, as it’s the first time we’ve changed the sovereign on our notes. 

‘We know that cash is important for many people, and we are committed to providing banknotes for as long as the public demand them. Bringing these new notes into circulation is a demonstration of that commitment.’