Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(orig. Aus.) inferior, useless, second-rate; thus n. two-bobber, something unexceptional.

1886		S. Bourke & Mornington Jrnl (Richmond, Vic.) 9 June 1s/6: The butcher took his wife that night / To see a two-bob play; / But in the forty-shilling box / Sat he who couldn’t pay.
1944		L. Glassop We Were the Rats 144: Bert was more the ‘two-bob lair’ type than Eddie.
1953		Argus (Melbourne) 3 Jan. 22/6: [He] offered a £100 block of land for the return of his lost dog, Darkie, ‘just a two bobber’.
1959		D. Niland Big Smoke 18: A rangy old man came in wearing a two-bob suit, the dog-eared lapels matching his dolorous eyes.
1977		(con. 1941) R. Beilby Gunner 91: We lived in a little two-bob town on the edge of the wheat-belt in West Australia.
1983		R. Aven-Bray Ridgey-Didge Oz Jack Lang 14: Although he wasn’t butcher’s hook he knew that anything heavier [i.e. than soup] might make him horse and cart like a twobob racehorse. [Ibid.] 49: Two Bob Lair Pretentious Lout.
1991		M.B. ‘Chopper’ Read Chopper From The Inside 13: Everyone I’ve ever moved against has been a bully boy, a two-bob tough guy.
2004		(con. 1990s) N. ‘Razor’ Smith A Few Kind Words and a Loaded Gun 436: Here I was [...] being verbally abused by some two-bob muppet.
2012		(con. 1980s) I. Welsh Skagboys 279: Fucked if ah’m playin sidekick tae a two-bob villain but.