Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(US) impoverished; cheap, worthless; esp. as feel like/look like thirty cents.

1896		Ade Artie (1963) 8: If I had time I’d go over to that church and make a lot o’ them Reubs look like thirty-cent pieces.
1902		Ade ‘R-E-M-O-R-S-E’ in Verses and Jingles (1911) 2: Last night at twelve I felt immense, / To-day I feel like thirty cents.
1906		‘O. Henry’ ‘The Love-Philtre of Ikey Schoenstein’ in Four Million (1915) 123: From the very first dose he was ace-high and everybody else looked like thirty cents to her.
1908		H. Green Maison De Shine 269: Of course, some persons look like thirty cents, an’ it don’t matter what you put on ’em.
1912		J. London Smoke Bellew Pt 7 🌐 Why, if we can ever get our hands on all that bottom, we’ll make Rockefeller look like thirty cents.
1929		W. Winchell On Broadway 27 July [synd. col.] ‘How do yer feel?’ ‘Aw [...] I feel like thirty cents’.
1937		E. Anderson Thieves Like Us (1999) 202: You can [...] make me look like thirty cents.
1947		Baltimore Sun 22 June Magazine 6/5: Thirty-cent piece . . . droop [i.e. an unpopular individual. . . good guy.
1955		J.L. Herlihy ‘A Summer for the Dead’ Sleep of Baby Filbertson and Other Stories (1964) 61: You make a girl feel like about thirty cents. Honestly!
1967		M.L. Peabody To be Young was Very Heaven 308: [He] was as handsome as ever and made all the other men there look like thirty cents.

(US) uninteligent, stupid, i.e. ‘not all there’.

1960

(con. 1950-1960) R.A. Freeman Dict. Inmate Sl. (Walla Walla, WA) 15: Boob – a silly or stupid person who is about thirty-cents on the buck.