bank of england banknote news - Pam West British Bank Notes

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New B number

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There have been no reports of replacements or column sorts for sometime now. We can only speculate that the Bank has changed its printing procedures to eliminate replacements and column sorts. We, as collectors, will be vigilant in seeking out these notes, but, it may be we have seen there demise. Two bundles of five pound notes we have obtained direct from the Bank via De la Rue are bound with a digitally printed De La Rue wrapper bands. When you think about it, what is the point of replacing a damaged sheet with a replacement numbered sheet, costing time in printing and labour when you can just calculate the number of good sheets printed that day and so on, until you have completed the quantity required. The digital age has arrived and replacements and column sorts may be the first casualty.

The long awaited Provincial book is on its way

News Release 29 May 2009

Boulton and Watt The New Faces on £50 Banknotes

The renowned 18th century business partnership of entrepreneur Matthew Boulton and engineer James Watt provides the historical figures to be portrayed on the Bank of England’s redesigned £50 banknotes. Bank of England Governor, Mervyn King, made the announcement this evening when he opened a new exhibition at the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery: ‘Matthew Boulton: Selling what all the world desires’.

Commenting on the choice, the Governor said, “Just as the Bank of England plays an essential role in the economy as the United Kingdom’s central bank, so too did Boulton and Watt’s steam engines and their many other innovations as essential factors in the nation’s Industrial Revolution. So many of the advantages society now enjoys are due in large part to the vital role of engineering and the brilliance and foresight of people such as Boulton and Watt whose development and refinement of steam engines gave an incredible boost to the efficiency of industry.”

“The unique and rare opportunity that the Bank has through its banknotes to acknowledge and promote awareness of our nation’s heritage of artistic, social and scientific endeavour is an honour for us. The Bank’s choice of Boulton and Watt, a reminder of the invaluable contribution from engineering and the entrepreneurial spirit to the advancement of society, I think, well reflects this.”

The Boulton and Watt £50 banknote, to be launched in around eighteen months time, will be the second note in the Series F ‘family’which began with the introduction of the Adam Smith £20 note in 2007. Therefore its overall appearance will be similar. But for the first time two portraits will appear together on the reverse of the note, those of Boulton and Watt, along with the image of a steam engine and the Soho (Birmingham) Manufactory. As with the Adam Smith £20 banknote however, continuity is provided with the current portrait of Her Majesty The Queen, which was first used in 1990 and which will be retained on the front of the note. Further details of the design and the range of security features to be included on the new note will be revealed when the new note is launched, within a full promotion and awareness campaign.

Andrew Bailey, the Bank’s Executive Director – Banking Services and Chief Cashier, whose signature appears on Bank of England banknotes, also attended the Birmingham exhibition opening. Commenting on the plans for the new £50 banknote, he said, “Not only am I delighted with the proposed design for the banknote but I am pleased too that the Bank has the opportunity again to introduce advances in anti-counterfeiting measures which have come on stream.”

As new-design banknotes are introduced so the notes they replace are withdrawn - although they can always be exchanged at the Bank of England for their face value. The Boulton and Watt £50 banknote will therefore circulate in tandem with the current £50 banknote first introduced in 1994. This earlier note, which features Sir John Houblon, the first Governor of the Bank of England, will be gradually withdrawn from circulation with the final date for its status as legal tender to be announced in due course.

The design includes separate portraits of Boulton and Watt, developed from images held by the Bank of England (Bank of England copyright). The image of the Soho Manufactory, where Boulton produced small metalware and which became the first steam-powered mint and another, of the Whitbread steam engine designed by Boulton and Watt and installed by Samuel Whitbread in his London brewery, are worked from images owned by Birmingham City Council. Permission to use these two images was kindly given by the Council. Acknowledgement of the copyright and permission would be appreciated.

The Boulton and Watt £50 is the second in Series F with the Adam Smith £20 the first (2007). The Houblon Series E was introduced in 1994. The only previous £50 banknote design was the Wren banknote, introduced in 1981 and withdrawn from circulation in 1996. Prior to this there was a white £50 in issue between 1725 and 1943.

At the end of December 2008 there were some 171 million (170,846,025) £50 banknotes in circulation (6.7% of total notes by volume, 18.8% by value); over the whole of 2008 the average figures were 157 million (156,987,390) £50 notes (6.7% of total notes by volume, 18.9% by value).

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New English £20 Banknote

This new English Banknote is the same size as the previous design. The banknote features Adam Smith on the reverse. Purple / Mauve predominating. Many new security features.

AL Prefix = Column Sort

LL Prefix = Replacement

ADAM SMITH FEATURED ON NEW £20 BANKNOTE

Adam Smith FRSE (5 June 1723 – 17 July 1790) was a Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneering political economist.

One of the key figures of the intellectual movement known as the Scottish Enlightenment, he is known primarily as the author of two treatises: The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). The latter was one of the earliest attempts to systematically study the historical development of industry and commerce in Europe, as well as a sustained attack on the doctrines of mercantilism. Smith's work helped to create the modern academic discipline of economics and provided one of the best-known intellectual rationales for free trade, capitalism, and libertarianism.

John Swanwick Bradbury, Norman Fenwick Warren Fisher, Charles Jewson, Abraham Newland, Henry Hase, Thomas Rippon, Mathew Marshall, William Miller, George Forbes, Frank May, Horace George Bowen, John Gordon Nairne, Ernest Musgrave Harvey, Cyril Patrick Mahon, Basil Gage Catterns, Kenneth Oswald Peppiatt, Percival Spencer Beale, Lessley Kenneth O'Brien, Jasper Quintus Hollom, John Standish Fforde, John Branwyn Page, David Henry Fitzroy Somerset, George Malcolm Gill, Graham Edward Alfred Kentfield, Merlyn Vivienne Lowther, Andrew John Bailey

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