MORE MONEY INFO

• 1.5 billion – the number of £20 notes (worth £30 billion) in circulation, of which an estimated 150 million (worth £3 billion) are Elgar notes.
• £48 billion – the total value of bank notes in circulation, up by £10 billion in the last two years alone.
• 1024 – AD, the year the first use of a paper banknote was recorded, in China
• 1694 – the year the Bank of England issued its first note
• 830 million – the number of notes, worth £11.4 billion, taken out of circulation and destroyed last year because they had become so poor quality 
• 2,529 – the number of requests received by the Bank of England from consumers to replace notes worth £82,000 – that were damaged because they had been "washed".
• 1963 – the fist time a Bank of England note was issued with the face of the Queen. Before that they had the image of Britannia.
• Two – the number of people who will feature on the front of the new £50 note when it is issued later this year. It will feature the eighteenth century engineers Matthew Boulton and James Watt, who pioneered the steam engine. It is the first time a pair of portraits has appeared on the front of a Bank of England note. 

 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/banksandfinance/7398603/Banknotes-facts-and-figures.html