Binman faces £10,000 jigsaw puzzle

[burner1]

I'd give it all to the kids for a crimbo pressie, and then give the first one to finish a bag of sweets

It is a jigsaw that would drive even the most patient of puzzle fans to distraction.
But binman Graham Hill has been told the bundle of cut-up £10 and £20 notes he found in a Lincoln litter bin could be exchanged for new ones - if he can piece the bits together.
Lincolnshire Police launched an investigation and held the money for six months after Mr Hill, from Gainsborough, discovered it in Lincoln City Square.
But the force gave him it back when no one came forward to claim it.


Detective Constable Nick Cobb said: "Following extensive inquiries, there was no evidence that the money was stolen or linked to any criminal activity.
"This was a very unusual case and despite our inquiries the circumstances of why and how the money came to be torn up and put in the bin remains a mystery."
The value of the notes has been estimated at around £10,000 but Mr Hill faces a tough task, police said.


The currency has been chopped into small pieces and it appears no serial numbers have been left intact.


"He'll have a job making some money out of it," a force spokesman said.
A Bank of England spokeswoman said: "Providing the bank notes meet the evidence requirements, then an application for reimbursement should be successful."
Speaking shortly after he found the money, Mr Hill told the Lincolnshire Echo: "I was gutted when I looked in there and saw it all cut up."



>>Source<<

[flipper321]

Give it to those CSI Miami types - I'm sure there's some hypothetical piece of software that could put all the pieces together!

[Fett]

He could use any of the notes to make like 96% of a full note upto the serial numbers, then the hard task would begin, I doubt id attempt it.

[Over Carl]

I thought the BoE rule was that you needed at least 51% of the note in one piece with at least one serial intact?

[Realist]

From the bank of england web site.

Damaged and Mutilated Banknotes
If you have a damaged or mutilated banknote read the following information before completing the application form available by following the link at the bottom of this page.
Application Form
All claimants must complete a Mutilated Notes Claim form (see below) and send this together with all note remains by post to the Bank of England in Leeds (the address is shown on the form and below). Please note that applications in person are not acceptable. However, in those cases where the damage or contamination is of such a nature that sending by post is impracticable or could contravene rules regarding the sending of items by post, applicants should contact the Bank of England in Leeds.

Assessment of Claims
Many factors are taken into account when deciding whether a payment can be made. No single factor is given priority, but we do take into account things such as the size of the fragments and the presence or absence of some of the main features on the note such as the serial number, the Chief Cashier’s signature and the promissory clause (‘I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of……’). The declared cause of the damage is also taken into consideration before making a final decision.

Payment
All successful applications are reimbursed with a crossed cheque sent by post. In cases where applicants do not have a bank account, there is a section on the application form where an alternative account holder can be named.

General Information
The Bank of England’s Mutilated Note service exists to reimburse members of the public with the face value of any damaged, mutilated or contaminated Bank of England notes, providing there are sufficient fragments or remains. As a general rule there should be evidence of at least half a note. The Bank currently receives around 35,000 individual applications per year, totaling around £40 million. Despite the high volumes the majority of claims are assessed within a few days.
The list of ways in which notes become damaged is almost endless – from those accidentally put through a washing machine to those chewed by the family pet. Notes hidden for safe keeping can often be overlooked. Those concealed in places such as ovens or microwaves run the risk of burning whilst notes hidden under floorboards or in gardens become damp and eventually decay.

Claims and enquiries about damaged and mutilated Bank of England notes should be addressed to:-

The Manager, Dept MN,
Bank of England,
King Street,
Leeds
LS1 1HT
Tel no. 0113 244 1711

[Nibb]

How do you piece together £10,000 in cut-up notes?





WHO, WHAT, WHY?
The Magazine answers...


It's some jigsaw puzzle - £10,000 in cut-up £10 and £20 notes. What tips can the experts give the binman who made this lucky find, and is now piecing the shredded money back together?
Six months ago, Graham Hill found £10,000 crammed into two litter bins in Lincoln.
THE ANSWER
Damaged notes with legible serial numbers can be exchanged
To reassemble, sort pieces into piles - corners, Queen's head, etc
Patience and hard work are crucial

The only problem: someone had carefully cut the notes into thousands of inch-square pieces. Even the serial numbers had been cut in half.
Since no-one has claimed the cash, the binman can keep it, and the Bank of England will give him new notes for old.
To qualify as exchangeable, each note will have to be painstakingly reassembled with the following features legible:

• Signature of the Bank of England's Chief Cashier, Andrew Bailey
• The "promise to pay the bearer on demand" (near top of the note, under Bank of England heading)
• BOTH the unique serial numbers that appear on each note Mr Hill found the cash during his rounds

"It is important to have both serial numbers - otherwise we might find ourselves paying out twice on the same note," says a bank spokeswoman.
However, she stresses the bank treats each request to replace damaged notes on a case-by-case basis.
"We recognise it is sometimes impossible to meet all our requirements - this happened when we had a lot of claims for water-damaged notes following the 2007 floods."
The bank receives about £40m in claims for damaged or mutilated notes each year.
In 2007, £2,407,000-worth of flood or fire damaged notes were returned, and £2,303,000 in torn or partial notes. And the bank also received nearly 5,000 "chewed and eaten" notes - worth £92,000 in total.
Virtue of patience
Before Mr Hill can even think about exchanging his find for cash, he needs to put together all the fragments.
Jigsaw puzzle supremo Eric Smith has good advice for the lucky binman: be careful, be patient, and have a system.
Every time someone walked past, a bit of note would blow onto the floor


Kim Aumann, whose daughter found £2,000 in bits and pieces

"First you need to sort all the fragments into piles: a pile for each colour, a pile of straight note edges and separate piles for distinctive bits - like the Queen's head and serial numbers.
"Have a complete £10 and £20 note at hand to work from, like the picture on the jigsaw puzzle box.
"Then put the edges together to make a frame for each note, and fill each frame with individual pictures and numbers."
Mr Smith advises the use of a special puzzler's "jig-roll" - a large bolt of cloth to keep half-built notes on, which is rolled up at night.
The 73-year-old puzzler made the headlines in July when he finished the world's biggest jigsaw - a 24,000-piece monster measuring 12ft long by six feet wide.
The Stoke-on-Trent pensioner has only ever lost three puzzle pieces in the 30 years he has indulged his hobby.
Eric Smith with his 24,000 piece jigsaw. Be patient, he advises

"When I read the story about Graham, I was very tempted to give him a call and offer my help. I could definitely have a go on that puzzle."
Mr Smith believes it could take at least three months, working evenings only, to piece together the cash.
"Think of the incentive though - a £10,000 prize at the end of all that hard work."
Although using friends and family to help sort the pieces into piles might cut the time, he advises Mr Hill to work alone when fitting the pieces together.
"Otherwise he'll find that whoever he is working with is looking for exactly the same pieces as he is."
It's not the first time someone has found a bag of banknote fragments.
In 2003, Brighton schoolgirls Rachel Aumann and Maisie Balley noticed pieces of money "blowing around like confetti" - in all about £2,000 in torn-up notes.
It took the two 12-year-olds and Rachel's stepfather Peter Goodall more than a year to reassemble the fragments, working an hour every night.
But their reward came when the Bank of England accepted the notes - and now Rachel has a nest egg for her university education.
Said her mother, Kim Aumann: "Peter had a big wallpaper-paste table set up permanently in the front room.
"It became a routine for him - watching TV while putting the notes together and I think he quite enjoyed it in the end.
"It did drive us mad sometimes - every time someone walked past a bit of note would blow on to the floor."
It took a long time for Mr Goodall to find a workable system. "The one he adopted in the end sounds like the one the jigsaw puzzle expert recommends - separating notes into piles and filling in the frames," says Ms Aumann.
"I would wish the binman good luck in piecing together his £10,000 find. I'd say to him: it's fun and go for it."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7765701.stm