New £10 enters circulation
Melanie May | 14 September 2017 | News
The new £10 enters circulation today (14 September), featuring Jane Austen, with the hunt already on to find those with low serial numbers and those corresponding with Austen-related dates such as her birthday and death.
Just over a billion new tenners have been printed, with the note made out of polymer like the £5 note, which entered circulation a year ago. The two will be joined by a new polymer £20 note featuring J M W Turner in 2020. The current paper £10 note featuring Charles Darwin will be withdrawn in Spring 2018, with the date yet to be announced.
The new version is the first note to have a tactile feature to support the blind and partially sighted: on the front of the polymer £10 note, there are two clusters of raised dots in the top left hand corner.
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Following on from last year’s launch of the new £5 note, which saw millions raised for charity through the first fiver campaign, charities and individuals have taken to social media to ask people to consider donating their first tenner too. This included Caroline Criado-Perez who campaigned to have a woman on the banknote. She is donating her first tenner to a women’s shelter and is urging others to do the same.
Criado-Perez tweeted:
NEW TENNER OUT TODAY! I want you all to pls send me pics of you with yr first tenner ???? (and then donate it to your local women’s shelter) x
— Caroline CriadoPerez (@CCriadoPerez) September 14, 2017
In addition, the Bank of England has announced that it is holding a charity auction of notes with low serial numbers on 6 October, run by Spinks. Proceeds from the auction will go to Haven House Children’s Hospice, Macmillan, and Candlelighters.
Watch: the polymer £10 note – key security features
From £10 to £50 note
About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.