Red Publique Deposited
This term is sometimes applied to a copper coin in allusion to its color, but it is more generally found in conjunction with a substantive and used in a negative sense, e.g., "I am without a red cent."
Obsolete forms occur in which the combi- nation was employed for gold coins on account of their ruddy appearance. Thus T. Howell, in his Poems, 1568 (i. 91), has the line: "Ich shall not mis of red ones to haue store, and John Fletcher in his play The Mad Lover, 1625 (v. 4), says: "There's a red rogue to buy thee hand- kerchiefs."
- Frey's Dictionary (American Journal of Numismatics, Vol. 50, 1916)