Misprinted £5 Notes: How UK Resellers Can Spot Error Currency Worth Serious Money

A £5 note just sold for nearly £100 - and it's a reminder of an overlooked reselling niche

A polymer £5 note dated 2024 recently went under the hammer on eBay and closed at £97.08 after 13 bids, plus postage. The reason? A printing fault meant only the Queen Elizabeth II portrait had transferred onto the note, with the surrounding design - including the "Bank of England" text - missing entirely. What started as a £18.60 opening bid quickly escalated into a bidding war among collectors, ending in a sale price more than nine times the note's face value.

For most people, this is a quirky news story. For UK resellers, it's a useful case study in how error items - whether currency, packaging, or manufacturing mistakes - can command huge premiums when the right buyer is watching. Here's how to think about banknote errors as a genuine sourcing category, and how to apply the same spotting skills across other reselling niches.

Why misprinted notes attract this kind of money

Collectors of error banknotes (sometimes called "error notes" or "misprint currency") pay premiums for a few clear reasons:

• Rarity within a rarity - millions of notes are printed correctly, so a genuine factory error is a tiny fraction of total circulation.
• Verifiable authenticity - polymer notes have security features that make it relatively straightforward to confirm a note is genuine rather than tampered with.
• Crossover appeal - these notes attract both banknote collectors and general error-item collectors, widening the buyer pool and pushing up competitive bidding.
• Historical timing - this particular note features Queen Elizabeth II, and with King Charles III notes now in circulation alongside older ones, transitional pieces can carry extra collector interest.

None of this means every odd-looking note is valuable - but it does mean it's worth knowing what to check before you spend or bank a fiver without a second look.

How to check your own change for errors

You don't need to be a currency expert to give notes a quick once-over. When cash comes through tills, car boot sales, or job lots, it's worth building the habit of a 10-second inspection:

1. Check both sides for missing ink. Look for blank patches where text, borders, or the Bank of England signature should be - particularly around the portrait side.
2. Look for doubling or ghosting. Some errors show faint duplicated text or images rather than a full blank.
3. Check alignment. Misaligned print, where the design sits noticeably off-centre or overlaps the note's edge, is another recognised error type.
4. Note the serial number. Genuine error notes are usually verifiable against known print runs, and buyers will often ask for this, as seen in the eBay listing referencing a specific note code.
5. Feel for print texture. On polymer notes, correctly printed areas have a slightly raised, textured feel; missing ink sections will feel flat and smooth by comparison.

If you spot something unusual, resist the urge to write on the note, fold it into a display case immediately, or otherwise handle it more than necessary - collectors pay for original, undamaged condition.

Selling error notes the right way

If you do find (or source) a genuine misprint, a few basics will help you get a fair price rather than an underwhelming one:

• Photograph clearly. High-resolution, well-lit images of both sides, plus a close-up of the error itself, are essential - collectors buy on detail.
• Be precise in your listing description. State exactly what's missing or misaligned, reference the serial number, and confirm the note is genuine currency rather than a novelty reproduction.
• Consider auction-style listings. As this case shows, competitive bidding among collectors can push prices well above a fixed "Buy It Now" figure.
• Research recent sold prices for similar errors before setting a starting bid, so you don't undervalue a genuine find.

The bigger lesson for resellers: errors are a category worth watching

This £5 note story isn't really about currency - it's about the premium the market pays for anything provably unusual. The same logic applies across reselling: misprinted packaging, factory seconds, mislabelled stock, or production variants in toys, trading cards, and collectables can all sell for multiples of their "normal" counterparts, provided you can spot and prove the anomaly.

This is exactly the kind of pattern that's easy to miss scrolling through listings manually, but far easier to catch when you're plugged into a community actively discussing live finds. Inside Lunar FBA, members regularly flag error items, misprint trends, and unusual sold listings as they emerge - sharing what's actually converting rather than just theorising. Combined with the right marketplace monitors and alert tools, that means spotting an opportunity like this while it's still developing, not after it's already gone viral.

Whether you're sourcing from car boots, till change, or job lots of mixed currency and collectables, a sharp eye for print errors, missing details, and inconsistencies is a genuinely transferable skill - one that can turn a face-value fiver into a three-figure sale, and apply just as well to the next unexpected niche that comes along.