Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. half-a-crown, 2s 6d (12½p).

[1652		Jonson, Fletcher & Middleton Widdow I i: Please you throw me down but half a dollar, and Ile make you a warrant for him].
[1788		‘The Turf’ Irish Songster 7: My earning I beg’d and likewise my bread, / My cloaths were not worth half a dollar].
1843		T. Haliburton Sam Slick in England I 42: I no sooner showed him the half dollar, than it walked into his pocket, a plaguy sight quicker than it will walk out.
1874		J. Greenwood Wilds of London (1881) 272: I’ll go you a half-dollar level if you’re a-mind.
1883		J. Greenwood Tag, Rag & Co. 244: They’re all you get for your half-dollar.
1884		All Sloper’s Half Holiday 8 May 6/2: The sporting prophets are a merry family! Where’s my half-dollar?
1899		C. Rook Hooligan Nights 117: We couldn’t pull down their ear for mere’n ’arf a dollar.
1908		A.N. Lyons Arthur’s 115: He’s give me ’arf-a-dollar.
1911		L. Stone Jonah 215: ‘A dollar ’eads! A dollar tails! ’Arf a dollar ’eads!’ roared the gamblers, making their bets. [Ibid.] 230: Wondering if the coin Jonah had pushed into his hand was a florin or a half-dollar.
1922		‘J.H. Ross’ Mint (1955) 34: Half a dollar will secure priority, and even a bob do something.
1927		Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 20 Aug. 11/2: Slanguage [...] Arithy. If hot dogs are a deaner a dozen at the fish and chip shop, and a bloke drifts in with ’arf a dollar in his kick, how many eats does he get? Answer to the nearest scrum.
1932		M. Marshall Travels of Tramp-Royal 80: So I paid my half-dollar.
1938		J.B. Booth Sporting Times 70: Where the actor out of collar / Often raises half a dollar.
1939		V. Davis Gentlemen of the Broad Arrows 105: Dud half-dollars, eh?
1943		‘Henry Green’ Caught (2001) 104: He hoped to touch Trant for half a dollar.
1943		R. Llewellyn None But the Lonely Heart 56: He stuck his half dollar on the brass sort of ticket machine.
1958		J. Arden Live Like Pigs Act III: Big Rachel found, like, a wallet... Three quid in it, see. Me mam had half-a-dollar too.
1967		J. Speight ‘Sex Before Marriage’ Till Death Us Do Part [TV script] mike: How much? wally: Twenty for half a dollar.
1975		‘P.B. Yuill’ Hazell and the Three-card Trick (1977) 183: Eleven ov us, not half-a-dollar in the bleedin’ house.
1982		(con. 1930s–50s) E. Mac Thomáis Janey Mack, Me Shirt is Black 129: I’ll never forget the brutal week I had on my half dollar.
1993		(con. 1930s) M. Verdon Shawlies, Echo Boys, the Marsh and the Lanes 49: We had a coin in the old system called half-a-crown and here in Cork that was always known as ‘half-a-dollar’ because a lot of families at that time had handouts from America at Christmas time.

2. (Aus.) used attrib. to imply second-ratedness.

1915

Truth (Brisbane) 25 July 12/1: What'd yer ketch out er larst Wensdee’s meetin’?’' queried the half-dollar sport.