The New Fivers
It appears that some of the new fivers are worth a lot more than £5.
See this from The MOney Saving Expert.
Check the serial number
Don’t get too excited when the cash machine spits out any old plastic fiver – most are worth precisely… £5. To see if you’ve pocketed a sought-after note, the main thing to check is the serial number (see main pic above).
Look out for the following numbers. Though nothing’s guaranteed, they’re usually worth more uncirculated and fresh from the bank.
Numbers starting AA01. The most valuable notes begin with AA01, the first batch to leave the presses. At a Bank of England charity auction, a note with the lowest publicly available serial number, AA01 000017, sold for £4,150. Some AA01 notes appear to sell for £100s on eBay, though some also sell for a lot less (eg, AA01 229695 is listed as selling for £19).
Numbers starting AB01, AC01, AD01, etc. These later numbers are much less likely to be worth selling – they might get perhaps £8 if you’re lucky.
Significant numbers, eg, AK47. Notes with the serial number AK47 can fetch decent sums thanks to the assault rifle connection (they typically fetch £20 to £50, but some have sold for £100s). Weirdly, fivers featuring 666 seem to have fetched £10ish. Plus look out for blocks of numbers, eg, 123456, 111111, 222222 or 333333.
A set of fivers with consecutive numbers. If you have two or more notes with consecutive numbers, which also feature one of the desirable types of serial numbers above, you might find a collector willing to pay.
Sold £80 note
How much are they REALLY worth?
The quickest way to get an idea of a note’s value is to search eBay* for sold items – enter a few details, then click ‘sold listings’ on the grey left-hand bar. (You need to be logged in on eBay to see completed items.)
Yet as we’ve said above, you need to take very high ‘sold’ figures with a handful of salt. In reality, eBay doesn’t force winning bidders to buy the goods – it just puts a black mark on their account if they don’t pay up. We asked eBay how many of these ‘sold’ fiver auctions result in a proper sale, but it wouldn’t give out the info.
Now if you have one that is worth a fortune - don't forget the one who told you about it, will you.