Green’s Dictionary of Slang

a shilling (5p); always in pl.

1879		‘Autobiog. of a Thief’ in Macmillan’s Mag. (London) XL 501: [I] took the daisies to a Sheney (Jew) down the gaff, and done (sold) them for thirty blow (shillings).
1885		Daily Tel. 5 Feb. 2/6: They said they could sell some for five blows (shillings), and that he could easily make £158 of the stuff [F&H].
1898		Binstead & Wells A Pink ’Un and a Pelican 87: ’Ere, Alick knocks ’im about fer five blo’ — who’ll ’ave it?
1900		Sporting Times 7 Apr. 1/5: Three bob I ars’ed him for [...] but he swore blind he’d on’y got two [...] What could I do? I’m forced to accept his apology an’ the two blo’.
1905		Sporting Times 4 Mar. 1/5: With about thirty blow to carry me to Plumpton.
1910		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘The ‘Two Bob’ Novel’ Sporting Times 30 Apr. 1/3: You can pen lots of piffle at six bob or more, / But you can’t at a couple of ‘blow’.
1919		Smith’s Wkly (Sydney) 7 June 9/6: Slang of Money [...] A shilling is a ‘bob,’ ‘blow,’ ‘peg,’ ‘dener,’ ‘north-easter’.
1923		Advertiser (Adelaide) 20 Oct. 20/9: Shillings in the plural are known as ‘blow’ [...] the word is never used in the singular.