Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a banknote.

c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: Screen — A one Pound Note.
1789		G. Parker Life’s Painter 179: Screen, a bank note.
1799		‘Cant Lang. of Thieves’ Monthly Mag. 7 Jan. n.p.: Drawing a Reader with Bank Screens Stealing a Pocket-book with Bank-notes.
1801		G. Hangar Life, Adventures and Opinions II 61: Those necessary professional accomplishments, such as [...] how to frisk his gropers for his reader and screens.
1814		Proc. Old Bailey 12 Jan. 95/2: Q. What do you understand by screens - A. Bank notes. The prisoner said he had got some screens to dispose of [...] they were prigg’d screens. I understood by that that they were stolen notes; prigg'd screens is the cant term for stolen notes.
1821		Egan Life in London (1869) 312: It’s full of pothooks and hangers — and not a screen in it.
1830		W.T. Moncrieff Heart of London II i: shut. What the deuce brought you here? covey. Oh, a little screen faking, that’s all.
1846		Swell’s Night Guide 60: Nummy Ned goes on tout to the gardens, pipes a swell, stalls round him, fam’s him, touches the rumbo [...] Five cooters and a screan ten.
1859		Matsell Vocabulum.
1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 34/1: I don’t think it will be any use taking ‘screens’ of this kind to the ‘start’ with us.
1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1993		De La Soul ‘Buhloone Mindstate’ 🎵 I had screens in my pocket / And tonight’s my date .

2. (also flash screen) a counterfeit note.

1818		W. Perry London Guide 3: A ‘jobber’ [...] who ‘hung about’ the Queen’s Head, corner of St John’s Street [...] was always furnished with good smooth whites; which [...] was flash for bad shillings, as screens is for forged notes.
1821		‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London I 555: The purse of course is found to contain counterfeit money—Flash-screens or Fleet-notes.
1823		‘Jon Bee’ Dict. of the Turf, the Ring, the Chase, etc.