CASH in the Attic has broken show records with the most valuable auction EVER after a couple pocketed a life-changing sum.
In tonight’s record-breaking episode, Cash in the Attic visits great grandparents and life-long collectors Vic and Janet Wittand their granddaughter Danielle Smith from Bristol.
Vic and Janet, who have recently become great-grandparents to Freddie, have been together for 58 years, and are starting to make plans for their Diamond Wedding Anniversary, hoping to liquidate some assets and raise money by selling items at auction to take their wider family away on a mini cruise.
Janet hopes to raise £3k – which Vic thinks is a bit too high – to take 11 family members from 4 generations away for a weekend to celebrate their diamond anniversary.
Janet, a former school science technician, and Vic, a builder, made a fascinating discovery over 30 years ago when renovating a two-bedroom house in Beaminster – a series of original bank notes from over a 100 years ago.
These nine white bank notes have been kept, almost forgotten, by the homeowner who found them and he had no idea what to do with them.
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It turns out that the Bristol-issue ten and five pound notes from 1916 to 1918 are so rare that two expert appraisers have almost nothing to go on when it comes to estimating their value.
For two of the 1916 fivers, there were no precedents for a sale at all.
Appraiser David Fergus said: “To find one Bank of England white £5 note is unusual, to find this many, and the £10 note it's unheard of. I've never come across this before. It's absolutely incredible.”
Closer inspection reveals that eight of the notes were issued in the local mint in Bristol and one in London. White bank notes from that period in London are quite common, fetching approximately £50-100. But Bristol-issued notes are much rarer.
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With no precedents to go on, David offers a conservative estimate of around £300 each, £2,700 in total. He recommends the bank notes are sold individually apart from the three with consecutive serial numbers. That’s so unusual they should be sold together.
Before anything can go up for sale, an auction house authenticates the item as genuine and estimates a value independently. Vic and Janet’s items are going to be auctioned at The Swan Auction House in Oxfordshire.
Co-owner and head auctioneer Tom Keane comes round to give specialist valuations on Janet’s jewellery and take a look at the bank notes. The watermarks reassure him they’re genuine and Bristol notes are rare, but, like David, he has no precedents for the sale of similar notes against which to benchmark an estimate.
When the day of the auction arrives, news of the Bristol bank notes has spread throughout the note collecting world. The auction is live online so there are potential buyers around the world ready to bid online or on the phone.
But as the bank notes sales start there’s a buyer in the sale room who’s so determined, she keeps her hand raised throughout the bidding for each lot. The Bristol notes spark bidding wars between the buyer in the sale room and those online and on the phone.
The first note is a sign of things to come, selling for a whopping £8,000 to the astonishment of Vic and Janet. Each of the individual notes sells for a four-figure sum and the three £5 with consecutive serial numbers are sold as one lot for an incredible £16,000.
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When the hammer falls on the final lot, the mystery buyer – the founder of British Notes, a company specialising in quality British bank notes and President of the International Bank Notes Society – has secured them all.
A delighted Janet said: “Never in my wildest dreams did I ever expect those notes to get that sort of money. And now from a very simple Diamond Wedding celebration with the family, I am hoping I can take them all on a lovely cruise.”
When she is told of the final total raised – a series record of £51,489 – she added: “We can have a cruise and hopefully put some money in our retirement pot. It’s absolutely amazing.”
See Vic and Janet’s incredible story in tonight’s Cash in the Attic, 6pm on Channel 5.
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