THE NOTE THAT HELPED KEEP BRITAIN'S
FINANCES AFLOAT - THE FIRST £10 MILLION
TREASURY BILL TO BE AUCTIONED

A rare £10 million ($16.1 million) survivor of a cash management system that helpedkeep the British Government's finances afloat for decades but which also enabled apetty thief to carry out the United Kingdom's biggest-ever robbery is to be auctionedby Dix Noonan Webb, the international banknotes, coins and medals specialists, inLondon on 29 September 2014. The Treasury Bill, which promises to pay the bearer£10 million but is stamped "cancelled", is expected to fetch a more modest figure ofup to £15,000 ($24,200) in the sale. It is the first time that a Treasury Bill with such ahuge face value has come onto the collectors' market.

Until just over a decade ago such notes were issued every week in the City of Londonunder a secretive system which enabled the British Government to manage its shortterm borrowing policy and make sure that sufficient funds were always available tomeet any net daily cash shortfall. Financial institutions tendered for Treasury Billsevery Friday specifying that they wanted the Bills on a particular day the followingweek.

The Treasury Bills could have maturities of one month, three months, six months or ayear (although no 12 months tenders were actually issued). The financial institutionsbought them discounted for less than their face value, lending the money to theGovernment until the maturity date. They were then able to claim the full amount ofthe Bills from the Bank of England so making a profit. The Bills were often traded onto other financial institutions so the Bank did not know who held them.

The Bills were collected from the Bank of England by messengers on the dayspecified by the financial institutions and could be cashed in by whoever wasphysically in possession of them. It was this prospect that led to John Goddard, a 58year-old messenger with the money brokers Sheppards, being mugged at knifepoint ina quiet side street in the City of London on 2 May 1990. The robber got away with301 Treasury Bills and certificates of deposit, worth a total of £292 million. It remainsBritain's biggest robbery, far exceeding the £53 million taken in the UK's largest cashheist at a Securitas depot in Kent in 2006.

The City of London Police and the American FBI infiltrated the gang involved inlaundering the Treasury Bills and eventually recovered all but two of them. One manwas jailed for his part in the crime but Patrick Thomas, the petty criminal from SouthLondon who was believed to have carried out the mugging, was found dead from agunshot wound to the head before he could be charged. What was extraordinary wasthat Britain's biggest and the world's second largest robbery was carried out by a lowlevel thief brandishing a knife in a London back street. Only the $1 billion theft fromthe Central Bank of Iraq by one of Saddam Hussein's sons in 2003 has topped it.

Today the system run by the Debt Management Office, an Executive Agency of theTreasury, is still in place but is computerised and no longer physically prints TreasuryBills. The last Bills were produced in September 2003 and included the one to beauctioned at Dix Noonan Webb which was given to a Government official as aleaving present after being stamped "cancelled".

"This is a piece of British financial history," says Christopher Webb, head of thebanknotes and coins department at Dix Noonan Webb. "We recently sold a £1 millionTreasury Bill at auction but this is the first £10 million Bill to come onto the market."

Dix Noonan Webb Ltd is one of the world's leading specialist auctioneers andvaluers of coins, tokens, medals, militaria and paper money of all types. Establishedin 1990, the company boasts over 250 years' combined experience in this field andstages regular auctions throughout the year.

Dix Noonan Webb
16 Bolton Street,
London W1J 8BQ
Telephone: 020 7016 1700.
E-mail: auctions@dnw.co.uk

To visit the DNW web site, see:
www.dnw.co.uk