Is this British pound?

What period is this currency?Can it only be used in universities?  Thank you very much.

Artistically, it looks very similar to the Series D £5 Note (N#202802). In fact, I dare say the £5 in the opposing corners were lifted directly off the note - you can see how the pattern on your note doesn't flow, but looks near-identical to the real deal. Those notes were issued 1971-91, although they started to reduce production in 1990 as the Series E £5 was released instead.

“The Golden Heart of Oxbridge” seems to have been an opticians & other university stuff (E.g. Ties), which fits with the “optical frames” bit written on the note. Information is a little scarce for a casual internet browse, but there seems to be people selling items with that branding on listed as “Vintage 1980s”.

On the note itself, I can't find anything anywhere about it. I guess it was either a promotional piece that perhaps you could redeem at the shop for £5. Best guess is it's from either the 70s or 80s.

Does the other side of the note have anything on it?

thank you, sir

A Collector

 

 

You have done well to get all this info and find the similar note.

Impressive.

I tried searching and couldn't get anything.

Chenhan - You're more than welcome - pleased I was able to give you at least some starting point.

BluHawk - I'm a collector of UK notes so the style of banknote looked pretty recognisable (to me). The double-bar ₤ symbol helped narrow it down for me (as in the lower left corner). Older notes did have it but they were really big & loopy handwritten-esque designs. That very neat block symbol with two bars is really unusual. All the other value notes in Series D, and in fact every Bank of England banknote since used/uses the single-bar £ symbol instead. At least, if memory serves anyway! 😛

It's been one of those weird things for me, I always write the symbol as a double-bar but almost everyone else I know uses single-bar. So it's an odd little detail on banknotes I pay close attention to.

Spotting that simple stylised ₤ rather than £ is what gave me that quick starting point. It was rather just good fortune that it was lifted from a standard Bank of England design rather than a Scottish or NI issue banknote, or designed fully by the creator. If it had been any of those options, probably wouldn't have been much use at all. But thank you for the praise all the same (even if it's more good luck than actual skill!)

Beyond that, a quick google search for the brand brought up a handful of results of people selling stuff, most promoting it as around the same time as the real BoE note circulated. Like maybe 10 people on eBay or Etsy or something like that.

Nice analysis of your detective skills.

Never noticed the ₤ - knew that £ is the norm. 

Thanks