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Rare British five-pound note to be auctioned in aid of BBC Children in Need

Rare five pound note

One of the five Graham Short engraved five-pound notes is going to auction to raise money for disadvantaged children and young people across the UK.

On Friday 8 December 2017, one of the five-pound notes engraved by micro-artist Graham Short will go under auction in aid of BBC Children in Need through Morton & Eden auctioneers.  Absentee bids for the note are being taken now through Morton & Eden, with all proceeds from the sale of the note going to BBC Children in Need.

The five-note under auction features an engraved portrait of Jane Austen, alongside the quote: ‘To be fond of dancing was a certain step towards falling in love’ from Austen’s novel, Pride and Prejudice.

In 2016, Micro-artist Graham Short engraved four consecutively-numbered examples with five millimetre portraits of Jane Austen surrounded by four different quotations from her novels, making each note unique.  Inspired by the ‘Golden Tickets’ from Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and in collaboration with the Tony Huggins-Haig Gallery, Short anonymously released his notes into general circulation in December 2016. A fifth and final note was personally presented by Graham Short to the Jane Austen Centre in Bath to mark the occasion of the 200th anniversary of the author’s death in July, 1817.

Whilst Graham Short’s Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish specimens of the Jane Austen £5 have been discovered in circulation by members of the public, the English example currently remains at large.

The note donated to BBC Children in Need, serial no. AM32 885552, was found by an individual in Northern Ireland who generously returned it to the Tony Huggins-Haig Gallery with an accompanying letter reading ‘…£5 note enclosed, I don’t need it at my time of life.  Please use it to help young people.  Kindest regards…’ to honour her wishes the Tony Huggins-Haig Gallery and Graham Short decided to forward the note to BBC Children in Need.

BBC Children in Need currently funds 2,600 projects supporting disadvantaged children and young people in communities across the UK.

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