Green’s Dictionary of Slang

excellent, first-rate.

1879		‘’Arry on the Rail’ in Punch 13 Sept. 109/1: The chaff at the Stations! ’Twas spiffing! We put some old guys on the wax.
1888		S.O. Addy Sheffield Gloss. 232: Spiffing, excellent, capital.
1890		H. Fludyer Letters 119: Pat of course looked as if he had just walked out of a ban-box, and the Mater and the girls looked spiffing.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 9 Sept. 1/5: Mister Gudman borrered the usher of the Black Rod’s rig-out, an’ looked spiffin’.
1898		E. Pugh Tony Drum 215: Shall I not have a spiffin’ time there!
1900		Waganui Chron. (NZ) 12 July 2/9: He thinks it’s all a ‘spiffen joke’.
1900		‘The Wayback Family’ in Sun. Times (Sydney) 9 Dec. 5/3: ‘Look here, Sarah Jane!’ ‘Oh, ain't that [i.e. a dress] spiffin!’.
1908		‘Doss Chiderdoss’ ‘Unciariasis’ Sporting Times 4 July 1/4: She dropped in uninvited / Upon a married friend named Maud, / And told her, with much sniffing, / ‘I think that marriage is a fraud!’ ‘I don’t,’ said Maud, ‘it’s spiffing!’.
1914		Sport (Adelaide) 3 Apr. 5/2: When I reach old Marrabel / With all my spiffling luck / I’ll see my darling .
1916		Joyce Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man 23: His father kept a lot of racehorses that were spiffing jumpers.
1928		F. Bason Diary I (1950) 35: I had a spiffing time watching people get ‘saved’.
1929		E. Dahlberg Bottom Dogs 270: Pett turned around to look at a spiffin’-looking jane.
1933		M. Marshall Tramp-Royal on the Toby 344: It was spiffing, chum. I spent a whole week in jail. It was like a holiday.
1940		N. Mitford Pigeon Pie 247: ‘Spiffing,’ said the old Edwardian.
1953		Courier-Mail (Brisbane) 21 Sept. 4/6: ‘Topping,’ ‘spiffing,’ and ‘ripping’ seem to have died with Bob Cherry and Tom Merry.
1958		C. Lee diary 19 Nov. in Eight Bells & Top Masts (2001) 184: Anglo-Indians [...] use all sorts of words that I thought only boys at posh schools use. Williams said they had a spiffing time at the garden party .
1959		I. & P. Opie Lore and Lang. of Schoolchildren (1977) 181: Other superlatives in favour were: [...] spiffing, spivving or spivvy.
1967		Aus. Women’s Wkly 27 Sept. n.p.: I though it was quiter spiffing.
1979		H. Leonard A Life (1981) Act II: He found me a spiffin’ job. I’m in it for life.
1982		Beano 3 July 1: Spiffing game!
1990		R.G. Barratt ‘Snowed Under’ in What Do You Reckon (1997) [ebook] I thanked Steve for a spiffing time.
1995		D. Lodge Therapy (1996) 12: ‘Jolly good,’ he said, ‘spiffing.’.
2001		Indep. Rev. 20 Feb. 3: One day it’s smart to say ‘prang’ or ‘spiffing’ [...] and for the next 40 years you get sneered at if you say it.