ARTICLE HIGHLIGHTS BANKNOTE EXPERT BARNABY FAULL OF SPINK

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V15 2012 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 15, Number 35, August 19, 2012, Article 18

An E-Sylum reader noted an article recently posted to the Spink web site about the firm's banknote expert Barnaby Faull. Included are some interesting collector stories - here's an excerpt. Be sure to read the complete article on the firm's site. -Editor

The other thing Barnaby's been collecting during his time at Spink is some fantastic stories. There was the chap who came into the office with a whole bundle of hundred pound notes from the 1930s which, when they were printed, would have each bought a couple of terraced houses in Battersea. "He'd found about forty of these notes in a safe in Jersey and left them with us to sell. Within the bundle there were about eight thousand-pound notes he hadn't noticed. Each of those would have bought you a house in Belgravia in the '30s. A thousand pound note is now worth about twenty five thousand pounds at auction; a house in Belgravia... well, I dread to think!"

There was the time Barnaby had to buy (for a period of 12 hours) the entire contents of the lockable duty free cupboard on a grounded aeroplane in order to leave a client's collection in a safe place overnight when he was required to disembark for the night in Bombay but couldn't take the collection with him through customs.

Then there was the man who bought a piece of antique furniture in the back of which he found about five banknotes which went on to sell for two hundred and fifty thousand pounds. And the elderly gentleman who brought in an album of Zanzibar notes printed by a company called Waterlow whose archive had been destroyed by fire.

"This chap came in with a collection of notes which he'd been given when he was a boy; presumably one of his relatives was connected with the production of the notes. It was an extraordinary collection which he decided to sell and give the money to charity. We catalogued and auctioned it for him and it went for about a hundred and seventy thousand pounds; he was sitting in the room as I did the auction, completely agog," enthuses Barnaby. "The whole thing was great fun. That's the human side of things."

To read the complete article, see: National Treasure: Barnaby Faull (www.spink.com/research-articles/national-treasure-barnaby-faull.aspx)

Wayne Homren, Editor