10 Pounds Marks and Spencer; Voucher

Marks & Spencer issued gift vouchers in pound-denominated formats for decades, but the late 1990s and early 2000s saw a deliberate aesthetic shift toward banknote-inspired designs — a conscious move to reinforce perceived value at point of exchange. These are not legal tender and never claimed to be, but the format was close enough that the UK's currency laws required careful design choices to avoid confusion with genuine Bank of England notes.

The barcode here is functional, not decorative — M&S had migrated to centralized till verification by this period, replacing the older manually-redeemed voucher systems that had been exploited through forgery.