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a quid is slang for a pound, a sovereign, or at times a guinea
the earliest known usage was 1688 by Shadwell "Let me equip thee with a quid"
the expression "quids in" means in profit or in luck
buck in all likelihood sprang from buck skin or buck hide -- a commodity of exchange, and metaphorically a loose measure of value, in Colonial trade with Native Americans
the earliest undisputed example of buck in the precise sense of "dollar" ("mulcted for the sum of twenty bucks") has a Sacramento provenance, and dates back only to Gold Rush times
buck seems not to have gained national popularity until the 1890s
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