Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also funny, funny paper) counterfeit money.

1938		in AS XIII:3 238/1: Nebraska needs no spurious coins [...] Funny money buys nothing but increased burdens of government.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn).
1950		Goldin et al. DAUL 75/2: Funny paper. Counterfeit money; bad checks or forged instruments of any kind.
1952		F. Berson After the Big House 231: This chap was my old friend, the funny money man. I am referring to counterfeit dough, what’s known in the trade as funny money.
1966		Forms and Systems 5/1: The trouble is that the money they were making was being made on the machine — it was ‘funny money’ — counterfeit!
1974		G.V. Higgins Cogan’s Trade (1975) 30: He’s gonna go out to the dog track and move the whole run, he’s so proud of that funny.
1985		J. Sullivan ‘To Hull and Back’ Only Fools and Horses [TV script] I didn’t intend to pay Del Boy funny money.
1989		A. Vachss Hard Candy (1990) 59: The cash looked good, but I wasn’t vouching for it. If it was funny money I was taking the same risk he was.
2000		(con. 1940s–60s) Décharné Straight from the Fridge Dad 139: Orphan paper Rubber cheques, funny money, counterfeit currency.
2014		S.A. Cosby ‘Grandpa’s Place’ in ThugLit Sept. [ebook] ‘[T]hem Russians, they paid my uncle in funny money for some powder’.

2. substitute money, i.e. coupons, certificates etc.

1969		L. Garoian Economics of Conglomerate Growth 98: So-called funny money is a package of some stock with bonds and warrants offered in exchange for shares of the company to be taken over.
1971		T. Thackrey Thief 163: The money I got that way was like funny money. From somebody’s Monopoly game. Not real.
1977		L. Heinemann Close Quarters (1987) 33: The boy was counting MPC, Military Payment Certificates, GI funny money.
1993		(con. 1969) N.L. Russell Suicide Charlie 106: MPC was military payment currency, funny money printed by the army to slow down black-market action on greenbacks.

3. tricks, deceits.

1968		N. Heard Howard Street 18: A cat had to watch these Howard Street whores carefully; they pulled some funny money now and then.
1999		Indep. Rev. 28 June 4: It is utterly bonkers [...] and it floats on a sea of increasingly funny money.

4. foreign money.

1963		White Over Green (6 Aus. Division History) 81: It was just funny money — no use of course. ‘Who’d want Italian money?’.
1967		F. Harvey Air War – Vietnam 18: I got a fistful of funny money at the gate of the Subic Bay (Phillippines) Naval Base and fared forth [...] into town called Olangapo.
2002		R. Gordon Can’t Be Satisfied xix: He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of money, the foreign funny money mixed in with some real American bills.

5. (US black) a small amount of money.

1980

E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 238: funny money Limited amount of money.

6. any money that has been gained illegally, usu. through some form of fraud.

1987		R. Campbell Alice in La-La Land (1999) 171: The clubhouse was decorated like the funny-money palaces of Las Vegas.
1994		G. Disher Crosskill [ebook] ‘[F]unny money coming in from the States to run the clubs and casinos’.
2000		Observer Rev. 2 Apr. 2: The extremely nice chap whose been sent in by London to tidy up the funny-money game.
2000		P. Temple Dead Point (2008) [ebook] The Sydney smarties put together this consortium to tender. It’s full of funny money.
2011		J.J. Connolly Viva La Madness 33: If SDonny King wants to buy a house, a car [...] to sink even more funny money into [etc.] .