$.25 – Two bits (from when Dollar coins were based on the Spanish Reals, and were often cut into 8 pieces or “bits” to make smaller change)
$1.00 – Buck (Buck is also colloquial slang for the number (not denomination) “hundred”. Where I grew up, we’d say “rolling a buck” for driving 100 miles/hour)
$5.00 – Fin, finster, fiver
$10.00 – Sawbuck (goes back to old ten dollar notes which had the roman numeral X printed on them… resembled a sawhorse (sawbuck))
We probably shouldn’t remind them that Scottish notes can be printed by The Bank of Scotland, The Royal Bank of Scotland and the Clydesdale bank - and that all of them look different.
Not to hijack this thread, but I have been considering writing a thread as to how I believe this to be an UL.
As a professional coin dealer for over 30 years, specializing in World Coins, these cut-up pieces of 8 Real coins just don’t show up! Yet people pass along the story that they were cut into fractional bits. BS I say!
As far as I know, the American term “two bits” has nothing to do with cutting up coins – you’re thinking of “pieces of eight.” The story I heard was that during the period when the phrase came into use, two bits (the thing that goes in a horse’s mouth that is attached to the reins) cost 25 cents.
It should be emphasised that you don’t need to know most of these terms unless you are intend opening up a market stall in east London and doing business with dodgy cockney geezers.
Using them anywhere else is likely to get you called “a plonka” and accused of watching too much TV.
The slightly different variant I’ve heard is that when the Spanish dollar and US dollar circulated at equal value, actual one Real coins (not cut up 8 Real dollar pieces) were known as “bits”, leading to a quarter = 2 bits. Perhaps you could comment on the veracity of that notion. It also begs the question of why the Real would have been called a “bit”.
Pounds are also the currency in Cyprus but they are divided into 100 cents and not pence. Currently the Cyprus pound is worth about 10% more than the UK pound. On the question of what " four and six " means this helped to trap a German spy in WW2. He had landed by parachute in England and walked to a railway station to buy a ticket. The clerk told him it was something like " three and six " and he gave the clerk three pounds and six shillings instead of three shillings and six pence. The clerk became suspicious , called the police and the spy was arrested.
This slang comes from the southwest of USA. There was a Spanish coin that was called a bit that was equal to 1/8th of a Spanish dollar. The term bit took on the colloquial meaning of 1/8th of something. 1/8th of a dollar is 12.5 cents. Therefore a quarter, or any other combination of coins equaling 25 cents, was referred to as two bits. There was at one point even a slang term for the dime that referred to it as a “short bit”.
I used to have a really good link for this one but can’t find it right now. Here is another that says pretty much the same thing amongst a great deal of dancing about.