How To Turn What Was Once A Worthless Piece Of Paper,

into cash,

many years ago many town banks in the UK literally printed their own money, many people are unaware that almost every town had its own bank that issued notes to be used in the locality, but alas as many of the local banks went bust typically between the 1820s and 1830s the paper the bank notes were written on became worthless, but some people kept them just in case, if one of your elder relatives did you could be in for a windfall,


Barnaby Faull, from London auctioneers Spinks, said that the notes date approximately from the 1790s to the 1920s he said: 'the banks started when merchants in a particular town got together and formed one for ease of use, the notes were circulated in just the local area where people trusted the bank, they are generally on high quality paper often with a watermark and they usually have a picture of the bank or a coat of arms and they usually are black and white, they are a bit bigger than a modern 50 pound notes and they are hand signed and hand numbered, they sell for about £200 to £300 each and the rare ones are about £2,000,


what brought all of this to light is that David Kirch, a multi-millionaire whose charitable giving is legendary, has decided to cash in his immense collection of 4,000 notes and give the proceeds to the elderly, the notes in the collection could be worth a much as £1.5 million, plus there will be about 350 Bank of England notes, which are also worth about £2million, 


so start looking in those old bundles of papers that have been put aside for years, you never know!


the provincial notes will be sold in four sales starting with the south and south west region, with the first sale on October 10, all proceeds will be going to the David Kirch Charitable Trust.