New Bill Brings 410,000 Won at Auction

As new 5,000 won bills with unique serial numbers gain popularity among banknote collectors, their prices on the collector’s market have skyrocketed.

The Bank of Korea and “Auction,” an Internet auction company, said yesterday that the Bank of Korea began an auction for new 5,000 won bills with serial numbers from 6,701 to 10,000 at 5:00 p.m. on January 19, and that hundreds of bidders participated.

The hottest bills at the auction were a batch of 10 bills with serial numbers from 7,771 to 7,780, which included a banknote with the unique serial number: “AA0007777A.”

Bill with a face value of 5,000 won sells for 410,000 won-

At 3:00 p.m. on that day, 36 people attended the auction, and the price of the lot went up to 4.1 million won, about 80 times the face value of the bills. In other words, 5,000 won bills were being sold for 410,000 won apiece.

The prices of two batches of bills with serial numbers from 9,991 to 10,000 and from 6,701 to 6,710 rose to four million won and 550,000 won, respectively.

When the Bank of Korea put newly-printed 5,000 won bills up for auction back in 2002, a lot of bills with serial numbers from 101 through 110 sold for 660,000 won. At the time, the new 5,000 won bills were not much different from the existing ones except for new anti-counterfeiting devices.

But the bank’s new 5,000 won bills have a wholly different design this time, which is generating interest among Korea’s many banknote collectors.

The current auction will end on January 26. New 5,000 won bills with serial numbers from 3,401 to 6,700 and 101 to 3,400 will be auctioned from February 1 to 8 and February 8 to 15, respectively.

Bills with serial numbers from 101 to 110 are expected to be very popular, so those bills will be auctioned one by one.

The Bank of Korea plans to donate the proceeds from the auctions to a charity fund for the underprivileged.

The new bills with the smallest serial numbers ranging from 1 to 100 will be displayed at the Bank of Korea’s museum.

Suk-Min Hong smhong@donga.com