First there were commemorative watches, then there were commemorative bottles of beer - called Red Dawn. Now the Bank of England has joined the crush to make a buck out of Hong Kong's handover to China by printing special £5 notes.
The handover is big business and the Old Lady of Threadneedle Street hasn't missed a trick. She has reconfigured her presses for the first time in 303 years to produce 500,000 fivers with the serial number prefix HK97.
These items are being sold in Asia by Singapore-based MoneyWorld at US$18 each. Demand has been strong. MoneyWorld sold out of its first batch during a three-day exhibition in Hong Kong, with queues running into the hundreds.
"It has been a roaring success," says MoneyWorld boss Michael Tan: "We are very proud to be involved." The Bank of England was paid an undisclosed sum for the banknotes. Any additional mark-up is MoneyWorld's.
And the biggest mark-up of all will be on what Tan refers to as the "auspicious" notes - those that contain lucky or interesting serial numbers. These are to be auctioned off in the next few weeks for far more than US$18. The most coveted number is expected to be 979797, which MoneyWorld hopes will go for US$10,000.
The number 888888 should also be a winner with Hong Kong bidders. Eight is considered auspicious because in Chinese it rhymes with prosperity. The territory's richest buyers are likely to go for 000001, given the obsession in Hong Kong for being number one.
But demand will be split for the key number itself, the handover date, because of American and non-American conventions. US buyers are expected to bid for 070197, the handover date according to the US practice of putting the month first. The bulk of demand should be for 010797, which is how the rest of the world writes it.
Except for China, which writes 970701. Steven Irvine