Green’s Dictionary of Slang

to not care at all; occas. not matter a tuppenny damn.

1849		Macaulay letter to Mr Ellis, in Life II 257: How they settle the matter I care not, as the Duke says, one two-penny damn.
1864		Dundee Advertiser 14 Sept. 3/7: I don’t care a twopenny d—n what they say [...] What is a twopenny d—n.
1889		Nation 49 68: An obscure Cork Orangeman named Wilson, for whose opinions on the question [...] nobody would give what the Duke of Wellington used to call ‘a tuppenny damn’.
1899		(ref. to mid-19C) Glasgow Herald 24 Nov. 24 Nov. : The Duke of Wellington’s ‘tuppenny d—n’ was as familiar thirty years ago as his aqualine visage.
1900		Eve. Teleg. (Dundee) 13 Feb. 1/4: I don’t care a ‘tuppeny damn’ to quote Lord Randolph Churchill.
1918		Dundee Courier 23 Apr. 2/4: We need not therefore care a ‘tuppenny damn’ for a mere handful of pacifists.
1928		Hull Dly Mail 31 Oct. 9/3: An Independent was a man who did not care ‘a tuppenny damn’ for any person and did what he thought was right.
1939		K. Tennant Foveaux 130: He didn’t care a twopenny damn if they were building straw huts.
1941		G. Kersh They Die with Their Boots Clean 143: For my part I don’t care a tuppenny damn.
1948		Hull Dly Mail 23 Nov. 1/8: Do you know or care whether he has won or lost [...] it does not matter two twopenny damns to me.
1954		Picture Post 13 Nov. 14: She doesn’t give a tuppenny cuss for glamour.
1955		J.P. Donleavy Ginger Man (1958) 165: Maybe I could have been a big fella with cars and maids but I don’t give two tuppeny turds.
1959		W. Hall Long and the Short and the Tall Act I: Do you think I give a twopenny damn about his life?