Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Aus.) a tale or story.

1861		York Herald 12 Jan. 11/2: [He] said to the prisoner [...] ‘Go along, you fool, he is spinning that “cuffer” to get you to get your dinner’.
1877		H. Hartigan Stray Leaves (1st ser.) 142: And he would rub and whistle and sing, or spin some wonderful ‘cuffer’.
1885		Bulletin (Sydney) 26 Sept. 6/3: And then goes on to ‘spin a cuffer,’ as it admits, ‘told over a couple of glasses of whiskey,’ about a poor devil at Macquarie Harbour taking a letter he had picked up to the officer in charge, which entitled its bearer to 50 lashes.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 8 July 4/6: [He] tries to work on the old man’s sympathies by pitching him the cuffer that he will ‘soon have to learn to eat grass!’.
1895		Mirror of Life 2 Mar. 10/4: [W]e spent a few pleasant hours talking over days that are past, and listening to the old ‘cuffers’ spun by the two veterans.
1898		(con. 1875) F.T. Bullen Cruise of the ‘Cachalot’ 139: They will talk by the hour of trivialities about which they know nothing; they will spin interminable ‘cuffers’ of debaucheries ashore all over the world.
1906		Gadfly (Adelaide) 28 Mar. 9/2: ‘Drunk an’ disturbin’ the peace, yer worship,’ says the slop, an’ then ’e gets into ’is kennel. I ain’t got no time fer p’licemen, any’ow; but this chap fair took the baker’s shop with blanky cuffers.
1908		G. Seagram Bushmen All 100: Farmer, you’re a real good hand at spinning a cuffer.