You Can Still Use Your Old £20 Notes With New Ones Going Into Circulation Today

New £20 notes have gone into circulation today, and as always with new tender, you'll be able to carry on using the normal ones for a short while.

The plastic version features British painter JMW Turner and, like the £5 and £10 ones that have been in use for a while, they're designed to be more durable and less easy for fraudsters to copy.

Eventually, they will replace the old paper ones as more are given out in cash machines and banks.

The current £20 notes due to be replaced were first issued in 2007 and there are more than 2 billion in circulation (seems unfair I've not seen many of them at all).

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We will be given six months notice from the Bank of England before they are officially taken out of circulation, but even then you'll still be able to use them as deposits in banks.

This means that paper notes can still be used for the time being as an end date hasn't been announced yet.

And you could get more than you bargained for, as some of the new £20 notes will actually be worth a lot more than face value.

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According to The Mirror, the new notes with the very lowest serial numbers are given to the Queen, while the Bank of England will then auction some of the rare ones with the money going to charity.

But the Bank of England told the publication not all of them are being reserved (or else we'd have none), with a batch of rare AA serial number notes entering general circulation too.

If you find one (or more) of these little gems, you will soon realise they're worth much more than the £20 that is stamped on them. That's what we saw when the £5 and £10 notes were released, so we don't anticipate this being any different.

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Back when the £10 note was issued on 14 September 2017, collectors flocked for one particular serial number. That was AH 1775 - the year author Jane Austen was born. She features on the back of the note.

This £20 note was first mentioned back in April 2016 when Romantic painter JMW Turner was announced as the face of it. He was also born in 1775, so keep your eyes peeled, folks.

If you manage to find a serial number JT 1775 1851, we reckon you've hit the big bucks because that would relate to the painter's initials, followed by his year of birth and year of death. Definitely worth keeping an eye out for.

Topics: uk news

Amelia Ward

Amelia is a journalist at LADbible. After studying journalism at Liverpool John Moores and Salford Uni (don't ask), she went into PR and then the world of music. After a few years working on festivals and events, she went back to her roots. In her spare time, Amelia likes music, Liverpool FC, and spending good, quality time with her cat, Paul. You can contact Amelia at [email protected].

@amelialadbible