Saturday, October 1, 2011

£1million notes sold for £69000

Do you remember the extremely rare £1million note on auction by British private collector news I share with you recently? The banknote sold today in a specialist sale in London for only £69,000, a little bit from its expected price of £50,000. The notes is one of only nine one million pound notes ever been issued. The notes were given to the UK by the U.S. in President Harry Truman's Marshall Aid plan after World War Two. Only two of them have survived (numbers 000007 and 000008). The latter went for £78,300 ($125,000) at auction three years ago.

1 million note

The banknote issued by British Treasury on 30 August 1948 for economic reconstruction but cancelled on 6 October 1948. This Treasury note entitles the Bank of England to payment of one million pounds on demand out of the consolidated fund of the United Kingdom. The notes were only in use for six weeks and were never meant for public circulation. They were only intended for internal use between financial institutions to track money, reported the Daily Telegraph.

The Marshall Plan, officially called the European Recovery Programme, was a scheme in which America gave money to Europe to help rebuild economies devastated by the war. The plan, named after U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall, started in 1948 and went on for four years.

Source: Daily Mail.