Green’s Dictionary of Slang

(Aus.) five in various contexts, e.g. £5 sterling, five ounces weight, a five-year prison sentence.

1946		Singleton Argus (NSW) 4/2: ‘Listen, there is another score in it when I see you in Sydney; don’t be a — mug; take the spin now and the rest after.
1949		L. Glassop Lucky Palmer 15: ‘Five on Don Moon at the sixes [...] Not five bob. A spin,’ said the carpenter, fishing a five pound note out.
1950		S.J. Baker in Sun. Herald (Sydney) 8 June 9/3: Slang words for sentences of various lengths include: ‘deuce,’ two months; ‘drag,’ three months; ‘sprat,’ six months; ‘the clock,’ twelve months; ‘spin’ or ‘full hand,’ five years; ‘brick,’ ten years; ‘the lot,’ life imprisonment.
1957		D. Niland Call Me When the Cross Turns Over (1958) 141: ‘You got the spin?’ [...] Black Tom put a five-pound note between his teeth.
1967		J. Wynnum I’m a Jack, All Right 8: I’m doing a sub for Stripey Travis tonight [...] There’s a spin in it [...] I couldn’t afford to knock it back.
1983		Aus. Journal of Cultural Studies May 91: Twenty years, or a Life Sentence: The Lot. Ten years: A Brick. Five years: A Spin. Two years: A Swy.
1983		J. Byrell (con. 1959) Up the Cross 153: £245, all in spins and bricks.
1984		B. Ellem Doing Time 197: spin: five dollars [...] five years.
1990		Tupper & Wortley Aus. Prison Sl. Gloss. 🌐 Spin. 1. Five year sentence. 2. Five dollars.
1996		J. Byrell Lairs, Urgers & Coat-Tuggers 147: ...dropping a pile of spins and bricks into an Arnott’s Arrowroot tin.
2006		B. Matthews Intractable [ebook] [T]wo white-collar crims serving a spin of years respectively.
2013		T. Peacock More You Bet 66: A ‘$5 note’, or ‘five dollars’ [...] was, and is, sometimes referred to as a ‘spin’, which has been passed on from the once popular term for £5 (that is, five pound).