One Million Pound Note For Sale. Rare Treasury Bill at Dix Noonan Webb

 

An extremely rare Treasury Bill for one million pounds will come to auction at Dix Noonan Webb in London on 24 April 2014. The Bill, stamped ‘cancelled’, was given by The Treasury to a printer as a thank you present for work that he had done for the Government. It is expected to sell for up to £10,000 at the sale of British and World Paper Money.

“This is the first time that one of these bills has come onto the collectors’ market so we are into new territory here,” said Christopher Webb, head of the coins and banknotes department at DNW. “We have sold one of just two surviving Treasury One Million Pound notes issued as part of the Marshall Aid plan after the Second World War but this is much more recent.”

The Treasury Bill’s issue date is 8 September 2003 and it is signed by Andrew Turnbull, then Permanent Secretary to the Treasury and later Head of the Civil Service. It states: “This Treasury Bill entitles ........... to Payment of One Million Pounds out of the Debt Management Account on 6 October 2003 on surrender of this Treasury Bill to the Bank of England”. The name of the payee has been left blank and a note at the bottom of the Bill says “if this blank is not filled in, the Bill will be paid to Bearer.” However the cancellation stamp means that anyone hoping to claim a million pounds would be disappointed.

These Bills are issued under the Treasury Bills Act of 1877 to raise money for the Government’s Debt Management Account. They are securities enabling the bearer to reclaim money loaned to the Government by the markets in return for interest. The Account is run by the Debt Management Office (DMO) which is responsible for day-to-day management of the UK Government’s debt. The DMO is an executive agency of The Treasury and has the job of minimising the Government’s long-term financing costs.

Normally such Bills would be cashed in by those who had taken them out. The DNW auction provides collectors with a rare and possibly unique chance to acquire one of these instruments of high finance.