Hard Dollars, Hard Money, Hard Cash

Gold and silver, as distinguished from a paper currency.

1706.  Your mother has a hundred pound in hard money.—Farquhar, ‘The Recruiting Officer.’ (N.E.D.)

1778.  [They] were going into the Indian country, loaded with hard money, vermillion, &c.—Maryland Journal, Sept. 8.

1779.  Corn is sold at four dollars, hard money, per bushel, which is equal to eighty at the rate of exchange.—A. Adams, in J. Adams’s ‘Familiar Letters,’ p. 365. (N.E.D.)

1780.  “Three hard Dollars Reward” for the recovery of a black Mare.—New Jersey Gazette, Nov. 22.

1780.  The price of this paper, for the future, will be 3s. in produce, or 3s. 9 in hard money or the exchange.—New-Jersey Journal, Chatham, Dec. 6 and 13.

1780.  He was told that the trees would in a little time be worth to the contintent at least many thousand hard dollars.—W. Gordon, ‘History of the Am. Revolution,’ iii. 311 (Lond., 1788).

1783.  You acknowledge you paid Mr. Peters, in May 1777, 1005 hard dollars in paper. [The writer comments on the contradiction in terms.]—Maryland Journal, Feb. 18.

1786.  Receiving taxes in hard money.—Exchange Advertiser, Boston, Oct. 12: from a Philadelphia paper.

1796.  From France we have received the principal part of our Hard Money.—The Aurora, Phila., July 23.

1800.  No less a sum than 200,000 hard dollars.—Id., Oct. 10.

1809.  Butter and cheese which would sell for [so much] in hard cash.—Mass. Spy, Oct. 18.

1825.  It amounted to one dollar and a quarter, “hard money;” or ten shillings “York currency.”—John Neal, ‘Brother Jonathan,’ ii. 137.

1833.  Hard money was indeed as difficult to come at, as if it had never been taken from the mines.—Watson, ‘Historic Tales of Philadelphia,’ p. 286.

1837.  He required hard cash in return for some corn.—W. Irving, ‘Capt. Bonneville,’ p. 38. (N.E.D.)

1838.  In the South they liked hard money, and the answer was, hard money you shall have.—Mr. Preston in the Senate, July 2: Cong. Globe, p. 490.

1838.  This hard-money Administration proposes to pay its debts, and supply a currency to the people, by engraving promises in blue and red ink.—Mr. Goode of Ohio, House of Repr.: id., p. 586, Appendix.

1840.  What were these charters granted for? That certain individuals might put out bits of paper, stamped with pictures, for which they get the hard money that is put out by the Government.—Mr. Benton of Missouri in the U.S. Senate, June 15: id., p. 464.

1848.