If you’re an independent financial adviser, senior financial planner or investment manager, there’s no need to tell you the deadline has passed for spending old fivers.
These flimsy bits of paper – that turned to mush when mistakenly put through the wash – stopped being legal tender this month and now the only way you can redeem them is through a bank.
You’ve a bit longer to fish down the back of the sofa for your round pounds – they don’t officially come out of circulation until October 15.
Still, they’re the sort of coins you’re likely to forget about in pockets and piggy banks, so it’s worth seeking them out and exchanging them for the new 12-sided version before the cut-off date.
Of course, working in finance you’ll be acutely aware of how much that pound in your pocket could be worth if invested correctly.
But did you know it could be a lot more valuable just as it is? And the same goes for those new fivers.
Of the four engraved with the head of Jane Austen by renowned micro-engraver, Graham Short, one still remains to be discovered and it’s worth at least £50,000 to whoever finds it in their wallet.
Other new notes also have an inflated value.
Recently a new fiver with a very low serial number was snapped up for £800 at a charity auction and any with the prefix AA01, which denotes the very first fivers to come off the printing press, are all worth hundreds.
In fact, there’s a thriving online trade in notes and coins and collectors are also interested in any with sequential serial numbers, even if they aren’t among the first to be issued.
It isn’t just new coins attracting interest – old coins in mint condition are worth a bob or two. A set of all 24 round pounds issued since 1983 will fetch around £80, if the coins are shiny and unused.
The change in coinage has come about in order to thwart counterfeiters and later this year a new plastic £20 will come into circulation – so it won’t be long before you don’t need a credit card to ‘flash the plastic’.
Meantime, if you’d like to coin it in with a lucrative new Financial Services role, the best place to start is right here with s1jobs.