Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. money, esp. silver.

1805		Plymouth Newspaper 24 Feb. quoted in Earl of Dundonald Autobiog. of a Seaman I:x 174: Spanish ‘pewter’ and ‘cobs,’ nicknames given by seamen to ingots and dollars [F&H].
1825		Pierce Egan’s Life in London 3 Apr. 77/1: His exertions were rewarded with a shower of browns, intermixed with a little pewter.
1832		Egan Bk of Sports 190: The johnny Raws [...] offered to sport all their pewter, at any odds, upon their countryman.
1842		Egan ‘The Bould Yeoman’ in Farmer Musa Pedestris (1896) 138: Hand up the pewter, farmer, you shall have a share / A kindness, for a toby gloque, you must say is rare.
1842		Whip & Satirist of NY & Brooklyn (NY) 15 Oct. n.p.: Instead of giving up their pewter / Will go to law to save their lucre.
1847		Bell’s Life in Sydney 20 Mar. 2/6: The roudy landlord was [...] extracting the loose pewter from the kicks of the heterogenous assembly of ball-em-offs.
1854		R.S. Surtees Handley Cross (1924) 27: Jinglin’ the odd pewter in his breeches pocket.
1856		Melbourne Punch 20 Nov. 4/1: ‘Proposals for a New Slang Dictionary’ [...] PEWTER.—Noun. Brads,- rhino, blunt, dibbs, mopusses, browns, tin, brass, stumpy, &c. Hard pewter means ready rhino". [...] To plank the pewter means to post the pony, to down with the dust, to drop the browns.
1857		S.F. Call 26 Mar. n.p.: [He] Went to fight the furious tiger, / Went to fight the beast at faro, / And was cleaned out so completely / That he lost his every mopus, / Every single speck of pewter.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 12/2: Having ‘slung’ cabby his ‘pewter’ for the ride, in we went to the ‘Crown and Anchor’.
1873		Sl. Dict.
1888		Academy 24 Mar. 202: Another trifle to be noticed is the anxiety for pewter or prize-money which ... animated our officers and men [F&H].
1895		C. Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 57: Pewter, money.
1900		Sydney Sportsman (Surry Hills, NSW) 7 Nov. 1/2: It’s no good cutting the pony unless I can put some pewter on her.
1903		Bluefield Daily Tel. (WV) 8 Jan. 2/1: Money has more synonyms than any word in the English language [..] There is in use coin, plunks, plasters, soap, rocks, dust, dough, ducats, dingbats, pewter [etc].
1905		A. Binstead Mop Fair 58: It did seem hard [...] to part with that £368 odd without keeping back a little bit of pewter for himself.
1945		J.B. McMillan ‘New American Lexical Evidence’ in AS XX:1 112: Pewter, n. Money.

2. a pewter drinking pot, esp. as given as a prize; thus meton. for a pint of beer.

1845		‘Death of Ishmael’ in Martin & Aytoun Bon Gaultier Ballads 41: The pot-boy from the Dragon Green / No longer for his pewter calls.
1873		Sl. Dict. 251: ‘Let me have my beer in the pewter,’ is a common request to waiters, made by ‘City’ men, and others who affect habits of rude health.
1889		Music Hall & Theatre Rev 27 Apr. 170/2: Pint after pint followed it down [...] Time was called after the sixteenth pewter.
1898		Regiment 11 June 165/1: [A] hearty pull at the pewter.
1912		Bulletin (Sydney) 3 Oct. 18/1: The churchman loathes the boose, and he / Still struggles to accentuate / This terrible antipathy / Between the pewter and the plate.