Weronika Nowaczynska is reluctant to touch the new £10 note. As a vegan she objects to the fact the polymer banknotes were made using the animal byproduct tallow.
She works at Redemption, a vegan restaurant on Old Street in London, where some customers had already expressed unease about the new plastic fivers, introduced last year, which are made the same way.
After the bank issued the new £5 note, one the Rainbow cafe in Cambridgerefused to accept them. It has not said whether it will accept the new tenners.
Nowaczynska, who is from Poland, sympathises. “If it was up to me I wouldn’t take it,” she said. “Especially in a vegan restaurant, but what can you do? You can’t turn money away.”
At least two of her customers have refused the new £5 notes as change, insisting on coins instead, she said. “From a design point of view it looks pretty nice, and I like Jane Austen. But that’s not really the point. They should have found a different way to make them that doesn’t use animal fat.”
The Bank of England decided to stick with its production process for plastic banknotes despite complaints from vegans and religious groups. It said that after “careful and serious consideration and extensive public consultation” switching to palm oil alternatives would be costly and raise questions about environmental sustainability.
Nowaczynska is not convinced. “I am not sure whether you can trust they have done everything they can to avoid using animal fat,” she said.
Baris Danisan, the Kurdish owner of Barry’s Food and Wine in Hoxton, has no such qualms. He is proud that the cash machine outside his shop was one of the first chosen to distribute the new notes. He attached a homemade sticker to the ATM boasting: “Polymer £10 note ready.”
Danisan is a collector of old banknotes. He draws a sample from under his till that includes old tenners and fivers and an old £1 note. It also includes one of the first plastic fivers to run off the presses, featuring a sought-after serial number beginning AA01.
“You can get on them eBay for £25, but this is not for sale,” he said. As it came out of the machine outside his shop, Danisan wants to keep it to show his children.
“I’m just lucky they chose this store. I’ve collected notes from a young age, just for fun, not for money.”
The Queen was to be presented with the first new tenner, with serial number AA01 000001. Prince Philip was to get the second and Theresa May the third.
Collectors are on the hunt for very low serial numbers after the lowest-number £5 note issued to the public, AA01000017, sold for £4,105 at a charity auction last year.
This time the first tenners to emerge from the cash machine outside Barry’s Food and Wine didn’t have collectable serial numbers. Danisan looks down at the notes with some disdain. “I won’t be collecting those because they haven’t got AAs on them.”
He holds out hope, however, that there could be serial number treasures hiding in the machine. “Maybe the bottom set is different,” he said.
Danisan has had to reassure some customers in his shop that the new notes are not forgeries. “It looks different from the old one,” said Dominik, a Polish builder, after withdrawing a handful of new tenners from the machine.
Asked if he wa a fan of Jane Austen, who features on the note, Dominik said: “ I don’t know her.”
Pointing to the picture of the Queen on the other side of the note, he said: “I only know this one.”
