Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a sovereign; thus money in general (see cite 1913).

1830		Birmingham Jrnl 10 July 3/4: [W]itness asked Smith the price of various counterfeit coins, when she said cooters (sovereigns) were 4s. 6d. each; tusheroons (half-crowns) 5s. a dozen; pegs (shillings) seven score for 20s.
1837–8		‘Lamentation Of The Bawds Of London’ in Cuckold’s Nest 17: Where a swell took his mot, and to snooze there, I ween, sirs, / Dropt his five couters, and thought it not mean, sirs.
1840		Courier (Hobart, Tas.) 27 Oct. 3/1: [advert, from UK source] [S]lap-up full dress Togs. 2 couters, 3 quarters and a peg.
1844		New Sprees of London 34: D— departed into an adjoining room to fetch the schofels. He shortly returned, and demanded a couter for them.
1846		Swell’s Night Guide 58: I drew a swell of a skin coming down – twenty cooter.
1850		Man of Pleasure’s Illus. Pocket-book n.p.: For these lessons, which she daily and nightly gives, she expects two or three cooters at least.
1857		advert in ‘Ducange Anglicus’ Vulgar Tongue (1857) 45: Moleskin ditto, any color, lined with the same, 1 couter.
1860		Bell’s Life in Sydney 11 Aug. 3/4: Ryan ungenerously insinuated that Nutt’s libations having affected his ‘nut,’ he saw not double, but twenty fold, and counted as a ‘couter’ the ‘bob’ he had spent in ‘stiffners’.
1860		R. Nicholson Rogue’s Progress (1966) 111: The colonel [...] said, ‘Give me a funt [...] Fork out a couter’.
c.1863		gloss. Occurence Bk of York River Lockup in Seal (1999) 36: I took them to a swag chovey bloak and got 6 finnips and a cooter for the yacks.
1877		Five Years’ Penal Servitude 243: I’ve known her just walk in at one door of Swan and Edgar’s [...] and come out with a foulcher, with flimsies and couters for a score of quid in it.
1880		J. Payn Confidential Agent I 207: Well, he gave us half a couter at all events.
1882		Sydney Sl. Dict. 9/2: I pinched a swell of a fawney and fenced it for a double finnip and a cooter. My jomer stalled. I robbed a gentleman of a ring and sold it for a ten-pound note and a sovereign. My girl watched.
1887		Cornishman 6 Jan. 4/3: Specimens of mumpers' or tramps' talk [...] katter, a pound.
1890		‘Morris the Mohel’ ‘Houndsditch Day By Day’ in Sporting Times 11 Jan. 3: Lou Larzarath, who needn’t a been as mean as that, had commenced a-takin’ down the beer engine, just acos he’d lent a couple o’ couter on it.
1891		Exeter & Plymouth Gaz. 15 Oct. 6/4: If I don’t have a cuta, I’ll cut my lucky of the whole concern. If you don’t yappo (hand over)!!
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 20: Couter, a sovereign.
1898		Binstead & Wells A Pink ’Un and a Pelican 248: The millionairs go out among the hoboes that haven’t got a bean, and there ensues a brief era of couters and good feeling.
1904		Sun (NY) 10 July 29/4: Here is a genuine letter written in thieves’ slang, recently found by the English police [...] They made owt finups, a couter, a red jack, and jerry, and a red spark-prop.
1910		D. Stewart Devil of Dartmoor in Illus. Police News 17 Sept. 12/3: ‘Two couters (sovereigns) and a couple of dollars; what a treat’.
1913		Sport (Adelaide) 11 Jan. 13/2: They Say [...] F.R. is a good stayer in the Semaphore trot. Perhaps, he is looking for the couter.
1925		Western Mail (Perth) 28 May 21/1: [from Daily Mail, London] A sovereign had a lot of slang names [...] a portrait, a yellow boy, [...] a canary, a james, a couter, a foont, a poona [and] a bean.
1935		R.T. Hopkins Life and Death at the Old Bailey 66: Couter – Sovereign.