The new five-pound note was the subject of this little experiment at home in September 2016. I put the polymer fiver alongside the old paper version, took a closer look at its design and brought out a glass of water. This archive film captures that moment when a familiar everyday object suddenly looked and behaved differently.
Originally published on 29 September 2016, the video is a first look at the note as it appeared then. The portraits, paper-note comparison and discussion belong to that period.
The new five-pound note beside the paper fiver
Holding the two notes together makes the size difference easy to see. The polymer version is smaller, while the old paper fiver extends beyond it. Both carry a portrait of Queen Elizabeth II, but the new note has a much more conspicuous clear area beside the portrait.
It is useful to see them in someone’s hands rather than as separate pictures. I turn the notes towards the camera and overlap them, giving a direct comparison of their proportions. For something normally handed over at a counter without much thought, there is quite a lot to look at.
A closer look at the transparent window
The window gets its own close-up. You can see through part of the note, with metallic details around it. I move it nearer the lens so the portrait, lettering and clear section fill more of the picture.
That combination of printed detail and transparent material is the most immediately noticeable change in the film. The note is still recognisably a fiver, but it is a very different object from the paper version sitting beside it.
Folding the fiver and trying it in water
Next comes the hands-on part. I roll and bend the note, then put it into a glass of water on the table. After taking it out, I hold it up again and continue handling it. The footage shows the whole sequence, rather than just a before-and-after photograph.
This is a casual experiment with one note, so the film is best watched as a record of my first encounter with the material. A brief dip and some pulling cannot establish how every note will behave over years of use.
Watch the September 2016 film
The original video below includes the comparison, the close-ups and the tests. It is a small detour from the streets and cafés in the London autumn archive, looking instead at something that passed through our hands every day.
