Heads or Tails Publique Deposited
A phrase used to decide any proposition by tossing a coin in the air; the "head" representing the obverse, and the "tail" corresponding to the reverse.
The custom dates back to ancient times, the Romans using the term "heads or ships." Macrobius, a Latin grammarian of the fifth century, in his Saturnalia (i. 7), has: Cum pueri denarios in sublime jactantes, "capita aut navia," lusu teste vetustatis exclamant.
In Ireland the expression "heads or harps" was formerly common, the allusion being to the harp on the reverse of the half Pennies of teh seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
The phrase is common in many modern languages. The French say a pile ou face; the Germans, Kopf oder Flach; the Scandinavians, Krona eller Klafve; the Spanish, Cara o Sella; the Italians, Croce o Testa, etc.
- Frey's Dictionary (American Journal of Numismatics, Vol. 50, 1916)