Threepenny Bits

She could imagine, too, with a shiver, how easy it would be, the loss of the first pennies having remained undiscovered, to go on to threepenny-bits, and from these to sixpences. ❋ Unknown (2003)

There they all were: burly dragoons of stout pennies, heavy and holding their ground, with a screen of halfpenny light infantry, officered by the immovable half-crown general, who in his turn was flanked by all his staff of florin colonels and shilling captains, from whom lightly moved the nimble sixpenny lieutenants all ignoring the wan, frail Joey of the threepenny-bits. ❋ Unknown (1907)

Then he leaned over the side and half-contemptuously threw threepenny-bits and sixpences into the clear water in response to the clamouring young rascals who wanted to scramble for them far below and show their swimming and diving powers. ❋ George Manville Fenn (1870)

He got it at last, but not till all Betsey's pocket had been turned out; and finding nothing but shillings and threepenny-bits, she went all through her day's expenses aloud, calling all her girls to witness to help her to account for the sixpence that ought to have been there. ❋ Charlotte Mary Yonge (1862)

At present the natives will scarcely take anything but threepenny-bits, new and bright and bearing H. B.M.'s 'counterfeit presentment.' ❋ Richard Francis Burton (1855)