First fiver in Willy Wonkya-style challenge spent in Scotland

The public are being urged to check their new fivers after engraved bank notes worth as much as £50,000 were circulated. Picture: SWNS

The first special £5 note deemed a work of art has been spent in Scotland and is now in public hands.

Estimated to be worth over £20,000 the new Bank of England notes, created by the ‘world’s smallest engraver’ Graham Short, feature a 5mm portrait of Jane Austen.

Mr Short made four, each with a unique Austen quote, and rather than auction them as he has done with other artwork in the past he decided to launch a modern-day twist on Willy Wonka by passing them into public hands around the UK and Ireland to give four people a Christmas windfall. Fellow artist and business partner Tony Huggins-Haig said: “Graham and I feel passionately that art should be for everyone, and wanted to do something that benefited the ordinary man or woman in the street.”