Tin Publique Deposited
A depreciating synonym for silver, especially silver money, and which occurs in phrases such as "he has the tin," "pay the tin," etc.
The name is said to have been first applied to the small English silver coins of the eighteenth century which before their recall in 1817 were often worn entirely smooth and without traces of any inscriptions, etc., so as to resemble pieces of tin.
Mrs. Gore, in Sketches of English Character, 1846 (6), says: "Many persons . . . remember the villanous old coinage of George III, the tin-like sixpences, which added a word to the slang dictionary."
- Frey's Dictionary (American Journal of Numismatics, Vol. 50, 1916)