Feel like a million-pound note? It's yours for £69,000

If the global economy has suffered a hammer blow of late it was evident yesterday at a London auction house where a rare one million pound banknote was sold to a private collector for £69,440 – 11 per cent less than the figure paid for an identical note at auction in 2008.

The banknote was printed in 1948 to help America's post-war recovery as part of the Marshall Aid Plan. The two notes, the sole survivors of nine printed in Britain, were given as mementoes to the UK and US treasury secretaries. The price paid for the latest banknote at Dix Noonan Webb, specialist auctioneers of coins and medals, included fees and tax.

Printed on Bank of England watermarked paper, with the signature of then secretary to the Treasury, EE Bridges, the note is stamped "CANCELLED, 6 OCT 1948, BANK OF ENGLAND" and features a small cancellation hole through the signature. It was issued in August 1948.

The notes – which are numbered 000007 and 000008 – bear the inscription: "This Treasury note entitles the Bank of England to payment of one million pounds on demand out of the consolidated fund of the United Kingdom."

The notes were employed by financial institutions to track money and were only in use for six weeks.