2016-09-07 Wed

A new gallery at the Bank of England Museum, London at the Bank’s Threadneedle Street HQ is going to display world’s first paper money and the latest £5 untearable polymer note which will enter circulation next week.

The free display will explore the history of banknotes and its evolution since the establishment of the British institution in 1694. Apart from these notes, the gallery would also display notes that were used as receipts for gold coins by the 16th-century goldsmith-bankers, like the “white fiver” which lasted for 100 years.

Inclusion of watermarks helped Bank clerks identify genuine notes. Operation Bernhard, the Nazi’s wartime plan was to ruin the British economy with fake money that was created by prisoners at Sachsenhausen concentration camp. The notes were to be dropped by plane over Britain for the general public. The event never occurred and the Bank withdrew all notes and redesigned the £5 notes after fake notes started appearing in circulation.

The new polymer £5 is extremely durable and features high-end security features. In 2017 a new £10 note featuring Jane Austen would be introduced and by 2020, a polymer £20 note featuring JMW Turner will be issued.

The large geometric 1980s chuck lathe which created an infinite number of complex non-reproducible “Spirograph” patterns, used on Series A (1928) and Series C (1960s) banknotes, will also be on display.

The gallery is open to the public from Wednesday.