page_title: Bank of England note issues
section_title: In popular culture
hierarchical_section_title: Bank of England note issues / In popular culture
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: Adolf Burger à l'avant-première des Faussaires diffusée à l'UGC Ciné Cité Les Halles, à Paris.
context_page_description: The Bank of England, which is now the central bank of the United Kingdom, British Crown Dependencies and British Overseas Territories has issued banknotes since 1694. In 1921 The Bank of England gained a legal monopoly on the issue of banknotes in England and Wales, a process that started with the Bank Charter Act of 1844 when the ability of other banks to issue notes was restricted.
  Banknotes were originally hand-written; although they were partially printed from 1725 onwards, cashiers still had to sign each note and make them payable to someone. Notes were fully printed from 1855. Since 1970, the Bank of England's notes have featured portraits of British historical figures.
  Of the eight banks authorised to issue banknotes in the UK, only the Bank of England can issue banknotes in England and Wales, where its notes are legal tender. Bank of England notes are not legal tender in Scotland and Northern Ireland, but are accepted there along with the respective countries' national banknotes.
context_section_description: The 2007 Austrian-German film The Counterfeiters (Die Fälscher) tells the story of Salomon Sorowitsch (real name Salomon Smolianoff), a Jewish forger who is put to work forging Bank of England notes on Operation Bernhard in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. On 13 March 2009 BBC Radio 4 broadcast The Counterfeiter's Tale, a 30-minute partly dramatised documentary about the production of the notes in Sachsenhausen. It was re-broadcast by Radio 4 Extra on 15 November 2015.
  Mark Twain's short story "The Million Pound Bank Note" deals with an impoverished American in London who is given the use of a million-pound Bank of England note for thirty days—two Englishmen betting whether or not he will be able to survive on a note for which he cannot possibly be given change.  He does succeed in surviving, quite well, and marries one of the bettors' daughters.  The story was also made into a 1953 film, The Million Pound Note starring Gregory Peck, and is parodied in the episode of The Simpsons "The Trouble with Trillions".
  A fictionalised version of the Operation Bernhard story was the topic of a comedy drama serial Private Schulz (starring Michael Elphick and Ian Richardson) broadcast on BBC Two in 1981.
  The 2001 TV film Hot Money, starring Caroline Quentin, tells the story of three workers at the Bank who come up with a method of stealing from the cages containing old notes waiting to be destroyed.
caption: Adolf Burger displaying a forged £5 note at the Paris première of Die Fälscher, January 2008
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS 400D DIGITAL", "Image DateTime": "2008:01:21 22:14:54", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "124", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/60", "EXIF FNumber": "28/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "400", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2008:01:21 22:14:54", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2008:01:21 22:14:54", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "193557/32768", "EXIF ApertureValue": "162885/32768", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash fired, auto mode, red-eye reduction mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "55", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2592", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "3888", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "432000/97", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "3888000/877", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard"}