Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. cheap, second-rate, inferior.

1865		Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 54/1: She’s a real ‘stunner,’ none o’ tha tuppenny-ha’penny ‘molls,’ and she’s mine!
1881		N.Z. Observer (Auckland) 29 Jan. 193/1: Who, after all, was this North? Why, just a tuppeny halfpenny hairdresser with a hired shop.
1888		Soldiers’ Stories and Sailors’ Yarns 39: To break the intint cordial for a palthry tuppeny-hapenny action in that thrumpery coort o’ yours!
1895		Truth (Sydney) 31 Mar. 1/6: Six men were engaged to effect some tuppeny-ha’penny repairs.
1895		Truth (Sydney) 31 Mar. :
1904		B.L. Farjeon Amblers 139: It’s like Jimmy’s infernal impudence to introduce his tuppenny-ha’penny gags into my best scene.
1914		S. Lewis Our Mr Wrenn (1936) 146: I suppose he’s some tuppenny-ha’p’ny illustrator.
1924		Cornishman 30 July 4/7: Mr Thomas described the case as a ‘tuppenny halfpenny tin pot’ one which ought to have been settled.
1934		J. Franklyn This Gutter Life 172: We [...] then begin to quarrel about nothing, just like the average tuppenny-ha’penny married couple!
1941		G. Kersh They Die with Their Boots Clean 193: You don’t go and get a V.C. [...] because there’s some tuppeny-halfpenny little pension attached to it.
1958		J. Osborne Epitaph for George Dillon Act I: How is it he’s only a tuppenny-ha’penny penpusher then?
1960		J. Iggulden Storms of Summer 29: Like little kings on their juvenile dunghills? Smarming around like tuppeny ha’penny Jesus Christs?
1977		A. Bleasdale Who’s Been Sleeping in my Bed 32: Tuppence ha’penny toffs, that’s all they are really.
1985		A. Payne ‘Minder on the Orient Express’ Minder [TV script] 138: I don’t like being talked at by a tuppenny-happenny character.
1997		H.R.F. Keating Soft Detective 3: Give her this tuppenny-ha’penny task so she’ll learn some respect.
1999		Observer Screen 27 June 20: Let’s be honest, these tuppence ha’penny offerings are pap.

2. intellectually mediocre.

1894		London Standard 29 Oct. 3/5: She has hitherto treated me with contempt, because, as she says, I’m a mere tuppenny halfpenny stone-cutter.
1902		Bulletin (Sydney) 12 July 14/3: The old man of the sea, too tuppenny-ha’penny in his ideas for a State Governor even, would be hopelessly out of place as Viceroy. It was not only his passion for thrift that made penny-wise ‘Uncle Tom’ unpopular in this State.