Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a halfpenny; a cent.

1812		Vaux Vocab. of the Flash Lang.
1830		Lytton Paul Clifford I 64: The evening passed away very delightfully, and Paul went home without a ‘brad’ in his pocket.
1857		S.F. Call 26 Mar. n.p.: [He] Went to fight the furious tiger, / Went to fight the beast at faro, / And was cleaned out so completely / That he lost his every mopus, / Every single speck of pewter, / Every solitary shiner, / Every brad and every dollar.
1872		G.P. Burnham Memoirs of the US Secret Service 79: I hain’t got a brad to my name.
1878		‘’Arry on Politics’ in Punch 11 May 205/2: They’d not lay a cent on a ‘Saint,’ / But pile their last brad on a smart ’un, and wot’s common-sense if that ain’t?

2. in pl., cash money.

1810		‘A New Song Called The Mill’ in Holloway & Black II (1979) 251: His friends, all Yankees, they did meet, / To stump the brads for the look’d for feat.
1821		‘An Amateur’ Real Life in London I 394: The Link-boys, the Mud-larks, and the Watermen, who hang round public-house doors to feed horses, &c. club up their brads for a kevarten of Stark-naked in three outs.
1833		‘The Gape-Hole’ in Funny Songster in Spedding & Watt (eds) Bawdy Songbooks (2011) III 47: Come now, my lads, / Fork out your brads.
1835		Sydney Herald 18 June 4/2: [B]low me if it warn’t capital, you [...] gammoning the knowing ones till the Recorder almost gave in, and the lawyers almost returned the brads.
1842		J. Labern ‘Hannibal Knobbs’ Comic Songs 14: I used to have plenty to do, / And pocketted plenty of Brads.
1843		Satirist & Sporting Chron. (Sydney) 11 Mar. 3/3: [A] druggist of Pitt-street seems to have a deal less tin than brads.
1848		‘Ned Buntline’ Mysteries and Miseries of N.Y. IV 73: Old Jack’ll let me have the brads in a minute!
1855		Punch XXIX 10: Will you take it in flimsies, or will you have it all in tin? Come, look sharp, my downy one, and I’ll fork out the brads like bricksy wicksy [F&H].
1855		Broadway Belle (NY) 12 Mar. n.p.: Took all the ‘brads’ and ‘slid’ away.
1856		Melbourne Punch 20 Nov. 4/1: ‘Proposals for a New Slang Dictionary’ [...] PEWTER.—Noun. Brads, rhino, blunt, dibbs, mopusses, browns, tin, brass, stumpy, &c. Hard pewter means ready rhino". [...] To plank the pewter means to post the pony, to down with the dust, to drop the browns.
1860		Burnley Advertiser 29 Sept. 4/1: When a man [...] speaks [...] of pence as ‘brads’ [...] he is not a gentleman.
1870		The Tailors’ Strike in Darkey Drama 5 33: Dar’s de brads, sawbones!
1882		Dundee Courier 4 July 7/5: Got any brads? Pay us for half-a-quartern, there’s a good chap.
1887		Daily Trib. (Bismarck, N.D.) 23 Oct. 4/1: Money is ‘glue,’ ‘sugar,’ ‘rocks,’ [illegible], ‘brads’ and ‘wherewith.’.
1895		Crowe Aus. Sl. Dict. 11: Brads, money.
1897		R. Marsh Beetle 6: I ain’t ’ad no brads, ’cept now and then a brown, this parst six months.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era.
1914		Bulletin (Sydney) 17 Dec. 10/1: We’ll find where foreign loot is ’id, / An’ lift by night the bloomin’ lid, / An’ bear the shinin’ brads away.
1960		(con. 1950-1960) R.A. Freeman Dict. Inmate Sl. (Walla Walla, WA) 17: Brads - money.

3. a cigarette [pun on SE brad, a nail/rivet + nail n.¹ (4a)].

1925

(con. WWI) Fraser & Gibbons Soldier and Sailor Words 35: Brads: Cigarettes.