Yahoo News Check your fivers! Last remaining Jane Austen £5 note worth £50,000 'could be anywhere in the world'
An artist who helped mastermind a Willy Wonka-style treasure hunt for four bank notes, worth an estimated £50,000, admits the only still-hidden fiver could be anywhere in the world.
Micro-engraver Graham Short etched Jane Austen's face into the transparent part of the new plastic Bank of England £5 notes.
But true to Roald Dahl's classic tale of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, while three were quickly discovered, no one has yet publicly laid claim to the fourth.
Mr Short's friend and fellow artist, Tony Huggins-Haig, who launched the project, said around 5,000 people have called up falsely claiming to have found it.
"If I can easily change sterling for Euros at the airport, then it could just as easily be anywhere in the world," said Mr Huggins-Haig, who owns a self-titled gallery in Kelso, Roxburghshire.
Mr Short, from Birmingham, etched on a unique serial number and quote onto each note, and in December, quietly spent them in shops in each of the four home nations. The series number of the remaining note is AM32885554.
That same month a woman found the first, and promised to give it to her granddaughter, after Mr Short spent it on a sausage and egg sandwich in a south Wales cafe.
A Scottish student found the second in a Christmas card, and the third was found by an "old lady" after he spent it in a pub named "Charlie's Bar" in Northern Ireland.
She has since donated it back to the gallery and the team want it to be auctioned off for Children in Need.
The fourth was spent in the Dickinson & Morris Ye Olde Pork Pie Shoppe, in Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire, whose employees say they are are clueless over its whereabouts.
"It would be wondrous if someone finds it who is deserving, who is blown away by it, and who wants to do something worthwhile with it," said 53-year-old Mr Huggins-Haig.
"It's been an incredible and humbling story thanks to Graham, who goes to incredible lengths to create artwork.
"It really is a Willy Wonka story, and one day all four stories will be told, of which the first three are incredible."
All of Mr Short's work is insured for at least £50,000, but Mr Huggins-Haig believes the notes could actually sell for up to £100,000.
