MILAN – Great Britain says goodbye to 5 Pound paper notes to welcome plastic banknotes. Resistant to everything, the new notes in polypropylene – in circulation since last September – have officially replaced the old “fiver” in cotton and linen fibres. As reported on the The Power and Motion World portal, these undistructible banknotes were created by the very Italian Officina Meccaniche Cerruti, of the Cerutti Group in Casale Monferrato, the same company that since 1992 has produced banknotes for Australia (the first country to introduce plastic banknotes).
Resistant and safe
The new banknotes, slightly smaller than the classic paper ones, are safer and more resistant. Polypropylene, the special polymer used to make the banknotes, guarantees a greater resistance to dirt and water (yes, even when washed in a washing machine) but, in particular, makes them very difficult to forge. Producing them will certainly cost more but the cost will be offset by the fact that the plastic banknotes will last two and a half times longer than paper ones and this will be beneficial to the environment.
Sir Winston Churchill
The image of Sir Winston Churchill on the new banknote will accompany a passage of his famous speech in Parliament on 13 May 1940: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears and sweat”. At the front, as for all British banknotes, the image of Her Majesty the Queen. The choice of Sir Winston’s image on the new banknote – as highlighted by Mark Carney, the Governor of the Bank of England – is due to the fact that Churchill was “one of the greatest statesmen of all times, as well as the only premier in the world to win a Nobel prize for literature”.
By the end of 2017 10 Pound banknotes, which will feature the portrait of the famous writer, Jane Auster, will also be in circulation. We will have to wait for 2020, however, for 20 Pounds notes. The image chosen? That of the great romantic painter, William Turner.
by Alessandro Conte
May 15, 2017
credits: The Power and Motion World
