A previously unrecorded and just the fourth known £100 note issued by the Palestine Currency Board on Sept. 1, 1927, canceled with perforations, sold for £168,000 or $209,000 including the buyer’s fee at Spink’s April 28 auction in London.

That the note was given a starting price of £40,000 and sold for so much more is a story in itself, but the circumstances of this particular piece made headlines beyond the world of collecting.

It was found in a box of donated items by Paul Wyman, who was volunteering at a branch store of Oxfam in the eastern England town of Brentwood. The organization is a confederation of charitable organizations focused on eliminating global poverty. The piece was brought to Oxfam in October 2020.

When Wyman got to it and examined it, he suspected something special and instead of putting it into the store’s inventory, he contacted the auction house n February of this year and got an initial evaluation of £30,000. Wyman watched the sale online from his home and told The Mirror, “The auctioneers originally valued it at £30,000 and I was amazed at that already — never mind £140,000. Up until then, I don’t think I really believed it could be a real note, because they are so incredibly rare. It’s brilliant to know I played a part in raising so much money for Oxfam’s work helping the world’s poorest people.”

It was lot 257 in Spink’s 312-lot world bank note sale that also included several other Palestinian rarities. Paper Money Guaranty graded it Choice Fine.

Spink explained that in was printed in Britain by Thomas De La Rue & Company and that due to lack of proper specimen notes, it was sent from Britain to Palestine to serve as a sample of sorts, when some of these notes with serial numbers were taken out of the reserves and were made as a presentations to local officials. In the past 20 years, only 3 issued £100 notes have been offered in a public auction and only one other was a canceled issued type (serial number A000815, three removed from this note’s A000812).

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