$5 is a fin or finnif from finf, yiddish for five.

a sawbuck is $10, from the crossed legs of a sawhorse, an x, the roman numberal 10.

a double sawbuck is $20.

a sawbuck is sometimes abbreviated as a saw but never as a buck, because that is a $1.

Yes, but do you use those terms yourself? Does anyone you know?

(Incidentally, this is one of the pre-MT entries which used to have a raft of comments that somehow vanished into the Blogger black hole before I could transfer them to the safety of MT. I curse thee, Blogger!)

I can remember hearing my father [1920-76] use the term C-note for a US$100 bill, but I don't remember him using fin or sawbuck, though I heard it in older movies. My grandmother [1900-88], on the other hand, used to tell me about eagles and double eagles, $10 and $20 gold coins. I don't use the terms myself, although I will occasionally refer to a quarter as 2 bits.

That's pretty much my experience too, though I'll sometimes refer to a "fin" or "sawbuck" as a conscious archaism. I always wanted to be an old coot.

This morning I came across an entry in Partridge's Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English for syebuck (which had earlier been cited as fyebuck) meaning 'sixpence'. From 1781. He suggests it may be connected to hog for shilling, which I was also unfamiliar with.

My father (1948-2001) would always use those expressions. He would say things like: "Hey kid I got this for a saw buck, yeaaa a saaaaw buck, am I a wheeler and dealer or what"

My reply: m'kay Dad lets see if we can leave the 70's eh

The term "sawbuck" originates from the late 1800s, when construction was the force driving America's economic prosperity.

During this period, carpenters and craftsmen used two boards nailed together in the shape of an "X" to secure wood that was to be cut. From the side, this man-made apparatus looked like the roman numeral for "10". They named it a "sawbuck".

Over time, these craftsmen began to refer to their $10 bill as a "sawbuck". The term caught on like gossip at a Bingo hall.

We're not making this up.

Look at the site to see a jpg of the Large $10 Bill with the Red X or Sawbuck!

- The SawBucks Team

duce = $2
fin = $5
sawbuck = $10
double sawbuck = $20
does anyone know the name of the = $100?
log = 100-$100(s)

$100 is a c-note or a yard. $1000 is a large, as in 5 large

variations are still used today, for example. Many young people call 20 inch rims dubbs (this comes from the term double sawbuck), or a twenty sack of marijuana is called a dubb sack.
1 dollar is a slat
5 dollars is a fin or half-saw
10 dollars is a sawbuck
20 is a double sawbuck
50 is half a C
100 is a C-note (short for century-note)

A while back a poster mentioned "two bits." Interestingly that term comes from our own 'un-developed' West. Before the banks moved West, during the mining era, people would trade using the gold that they mined. They'd break nuggets up into small pieces (called 'bits') and use them as tender. The value of a 'bit' was later 'set' at about 12 cents. Hence, two-bits was a quater.

One thousand is called a "dime". It is a term that gamblers have been using forever.