A set of banknote albums left anonymously at a British Heart Foundation shop in Edinburgh has sold for £85,860. Noonans auctioned almost 160 lots of specimen and trial notes on 14 October 2026, about £15,860 more than the roughly £70,000 the sale was expected to make. Here is what was in the albums, why notes that were never meant to be spent can be worth thousands, and what to do if you find old notes at home.
What happened in Edinburgh
The albums arrived at the BHF's home and fashion store on Straiton Retail Park, on the southern edge of Edinburgh. Staff had little idea what they were looking at. Shop manager David McCormack told the charity: "We all looked through the folders but didn't know much about the banknotes, so we sent them to our eBay team in Leeds to investigate. When we discovered their potential value, we were flabbergasted."
The BHF passed the collection to Noonans, a specialist auction house in London. The sale ran under the title Specimen Banknotes of the World on Wednesday 14 October and raised £85,860, according to the charity. Noonans waived its vendor commission, so the seller's fee that would normally come out of the total did not apply. The donor has not been named.
| Key facts | Detail |
|---|---|
| Where it was donated | British Heart Foundation shop, Straiton Retail Park, Edinburgh |
| What was donated | Albums of specimen and trial banknotes from around the world (almost 160 lots) |
| Auction house | Noonans, London |
| Sale date | Wednesday 14 October 2026 |
| Pre-sale guide | "In the region of £70,000" |
| Amount raised | £85,860, about 23% above the guide |
| Seller's commission | Waived by Noonans |
The notes that drew the bidders
Noonans' pre-sale release, reprinted by the numismatic newsletter The E-Sylum, singled out a handful of lots. The figures below are the auction house's estimates. We could not find individual hammer prices in any of the reports we reviewed, so we have not guessed at them.
| Lot | What it is | Pre-sale estimate |
|---|---|---|
| 24 | Uncirculated note with a portrait of a young Queen Elizabeth II, issued by the Board of Commissioners of Currency Malaya and British Borneo | £3,000–£4,000 |
| 46 | 1947 National Bank of Iraq 10 dinars colour trial, serial number A000000 | £3,000–£4,000 |
| 136 and 137 | Two hand-painted designs for Royal Bank of Scotland notes that never went into production, each in its own presentation album | £500–£600 each |
| Not specified | 1961 specimen 100 riyal note from Saudi Arabia | Not published in the reports we saw |
The two Scottish designs have the strongest link to Edinburgh. According to The Scotsman, one design from 1967 shows the industrialist David Dale alongside the University of Glasgow and a statue of Lord Kelvin, and the lot description calls it "likely unique". The other features Archibald Campbell, 3rd Duke of Argyll, better known as Lord Ilay, with Edinburgh Castle and the Old Town seen from Salisbury Crags.
Andrew Pattison, head of banknotes at Noonans, put the strong result partly down to goodwill:
"Material of this quality is extremely rare and collectors all over the world have responded extremely well, with many of the notes selling for that little bit more than normal on account of the charitable nature of the sale."
That is worth keeping in mind before treating £85,860 as a market benchmark. By the auction house's own account, some of that total was goodwill that a private seller might not get.
Why a note that was never spent can be worth thousands
None of the star lots was ever ordinary money. A specimen note is printed in small numbers so that central banks can recognise another country's currency. Specimens are defaced to stop anyone spending them, usually with "SPECIMEN" or "CANCELLED" printed or punched through the paper, and they often carry dummy serial numbers made of zeros. A colour trial is a test print in a colour scheme being considered before a design is finalised. The Iraqi lot is one, and it carries the all-zero serial A000000. Hand-painted designs sit one step earlier again: artwork that a bank looked at and never printed.
Mostly, it comes down to scarcity. In the United States and many other countries, specimens remain the property of the central bank and are supposed to be returned on demand, which limits how many reach collectors. But scarcity is not guaranteed. The Wikipedia entry on specimen banknotes notes that some issues were handed out widely and are worth less than the circulating note they copy. A "SPECIMEN" stamp on its own tells you nothing about value.
What collectors generally look for
- Who issued it, and when. Notes from short-lived issuers, such as the Malaya and British Borneo currency board, can draw specialist interest.
- Condition. "Uncirculated" is a grading term meaning no folds or wear, and auction descriptions lean on it heavily.
- Type. Unissued designs can be one-offs: the lot description for one of the Royal Bank of Scotland designs calls it "likely unique".
- Provenance. A presentation album or a documented source helps buyers trust what they are bidding on.
Found old banknotes at home? What to do
The Edinburgh story will send plenty of people to the back of a drawer. Most old notes people find are ordinary withdrawn currency, and for those the realistic value is the face value you get on exchange. For withdrawn Bank of England notes, these are the practical steps, based on Bank of England guidance:
- Check whether it is still legal tender. The paper £20 (Adam Smith) and paper £50 (Boulton and Watt) stopped being legal tender on 30 September 2022.
- There is no deadline to swap them. The Bank of England will always exchange its own withdrawn notes. The quickest route is usually paying them into your own bank account, and banks including Barclays, Halifax, Lloyds, Nationwide, NatWest and Santander accept old paper notes as deposits.
- The Post Office is an option for smaller sums. Post Office deposits go into a UK bank account you can access. For a straight swap without a bank account, 50 Post Office branches will exchange old notes; the Bank says this route suits people with £300 or less and photo ID.
- Posting them to the Bank is slower. The Bank warns of delays of up to 90 working days, and notes are sent at your own risk.
- Get anything unusual looked at first. If a note is stamped "SPECIMEN", has a very low or repeated serial number, comes from a former colony or sits in a presentation album, ask a specialist dealer or auction house for a view before you exchange it at face value. An exchange only ever pays face value.
Scottish notes work slightly differently. Three Scottish banks are authorised to issue their own notes: Bank of Scotland, Clydesdale Bank and the Royal Bank of Scotland. If an old Scottish note looks unusual, the same rule applies: get a specialist opinion before anything else.
Where the money goes
The BHF says the £85,860 will help fund its research into heart and circulatory diseases. It started with shop staff who sent a set of folders to the charity's eBay team in Leeds to check.
For more on where money in the UK comes from and where it goes, see our explainer on what the royal family costs the taxpayer and our guide to UK airport drop-off charges.
Sources: British Heart Foundation (14 October 2026), BBC News (14 October 2026), The Herald (30 September 2026), The Scotsman (1 October 2026), Noonans press release via The E-Sylum (11 October 2026), Bank of England. Pre-sale estimates are the auction house's and are not sale prices. This article is general information, not financial or valuation advice.
