Bones referring to money

Posted by ESC on March 27, 2007

In Reply to: Bones referring to money posted by Kristen on March 25, 2007

: I was looking through the body part phrase section and I think you forgot one that im curious as to where it came from... bones referring to money....as in "that'll be 50 bones, pay up sucka" haha, for real though, where did it come from?

"Bone" for dollar goes back to 1896. But I haven't found why. From "Dictionary of American Regional English," Volume 1 by Frederic G. Cassidy (1985, Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., and London, England). Page 328.