Incredibly rare Australian 100-pound note sparks a fierce bidding war and breaks world record as it sells for $410,000
- An immensely rare Australian bank note has sold for nearly half a million dollars
- The 100-pound note issued in 1914 was found in a deed-box in Tasmania in 1970s
- A bidding war was sparked, with collectors desperate to get it their hands on it
An immensely rare 100-pound Australian note has set a new world record at auction as it sold for nearly half a million dollars on Friday.
The 1914 issued note was discovered in a Tasmanian deed box in the 1970s and has been rarely traded between collectors – the last time in 1982.
The note, one of the rarest in the world, sparked a bidding war with it eventually selling for $410,000.
An immensely rare 100-pound Australian note has set a new world record at auction as it sold for nearly half a million dollars on Friday
Adding in a buyer’s premium and GST, the buyer, an Australian collector, paid a total of $500,200.
The sale is a world record for a 100-pound note.
The note was auctioned by Noble Numismatics in Sydney with managing director Jim Noble saying he expected the note to go for $350,000 so the eventual price was a surprise.
The previous owner of the note had bought it for between $40 and $50 thousand.
‘The owner was sitting behind the bidders at the auction, they were very happy,’ Mr Noble told Daily Mail Australia.
‘If we get the note back to sell again I’d hope we could (top the price) but as the collector’s a fairly young man that seems unlikely to happen any time soon,’ he said.
However, the sale is not the highest for an Australian note. In 2009 the first Australian banknote ever printed – for 10 shillings – sold for $1.9million.
According to the Reserve Bank of Australia’s inflation calculator, when the 100-pound note was printed, it would have been equivalent to just under $12,000 in 2019.
The note, one of the rarest in the world, sparked a bidding war with it eventually selling for $410,000