Ever hear the word "jitney" refer to a coin?

CaptHenway

A fascinating blog on the origins of words, called "World Wide Words," has an entry this week on the word "jitney." Many of us are familiar with the term as a reference to a privately-owned vehicle operated as a freelance transportation service, operating in competition with busses or, back in the day, streetcars. In effect they are unlicensed taxicabs.

The blog suggests one origin for the term was that "jitney" was a slang term for a nickel coin (I would assume that this would include copper-nickel) and/or a five cent piece. Many streetcars charged a nickel, and the jitney cars (or horse-drawn buggies?) could compete by providing door-to-door service for the same nickel or jitney.

It goes on to suggest that the term may have originated in the Louisiana region as a Creole corruption of "jeton," which is certainly plaisible. They originated the word "picayune" for the silver quarter real, and later used it for the U.S. trime.

Question: Has anybody here ever seen a reference in print, or even just heard, a U.S. nickel called a "jitney?" Have you ever seen or heard any other coin called a "Jitney?"

Thanks. TD

Sonorandesertrat

I always thought that picayune was an alternate term for a medio real (1/2 real).

Staircoins

Interesting.

A Google Books search reveals the 1919 Annual Report of the Massachusetts Public Service Commission (page 193) ...

... Since the jitney first emerged into view in the American cities on the Pacific coast, about five ago, its development as a factor of local transportation has shown many vicissitudes. As the original jitney operators owners of cheap, second hand automobiles, who found it to secure employment for themselves or profitable use for cars during a time of economic depression, jitney operation regarded merely as a phase of the hard times, which would as soon as the jitney owners obtained other regular forms of employment or found necessary repairs too costly to continue operation. So far as the original operators were concerned proved to a large extent to be true, but as they retired operators were ready to take their places and to try out experiment for themselves. As the public also appeared to eager to avail themselves of the reputed luxury of rides at a nominal cost of a "jitney", which is the western term for a five cent coin corresponding to our "nickel", service suddenly sprang up and assumed large dimensions many of the principal cities throughout the country. ...

lkeigwin

<< <i>I always thought that picayune was an alternate term for a medio real (1/2 real). >>

Same here.

I've never heard jitney in reference to a coin. But I like the jeton derivative notion. I thought it was spelled jetton.
Lance.

Dentuck

Dave Bowers writes about it in one of his recent five-cent nickel books ---
I think the Guide Book of Shield and Liberty Head Nickels. I don't
have a copy handy at the moment, but I'm 99% sure he discusses the
term in some detail. (And yes, the connection is to a nickel streetcar or
carriage fare.)

CaptHenway

<< <i>Interesting.

A Google Books search reveals the 1919 Annual Report of the Massachusetts Public Service Commission (page 193) ...

... Since the jitney first emerged into view in the American cities on the Pacific coast, about five ago, its development as a factor of local transportation has shown many vicissitudes. As the original jitney operators owners of cheap, second hand automobiles, who found it to secure employment for themselves or profitable use for cars during a time of economic depression, jitney operation regarded merely as a phase of the hard times, which would as soon as the jitney owners obtained other regular forms of employment or found necessary repairs too costly to continue operation. So far as the original operators were concerned proved to a large extent to be true, but as they retired operators were ready to take their places and to try out experiment for themselves. As the public also appeared to eager to avail themselves of the reputed luxury of rides at a nominal cost of a "jitney", which is the western term for a five cent coin corresponding to our "nickel", service suddenly sprang up and assumed large dimensions many of the principal cities throughout the country. ... >>



That is great! Thanks!

Now the question is, how did a "nickel" become known as a "jitney" out West?

CaptHenway

<< <i>I always thought that picayune was an alternate term for a medio real (1/2 real). >>



Yes, you are correct. I plead early morning lack of coffee. However, the word picayune was not part of the article in question, I merely used it as an example of a slang term for a coin.

CaptHenway

<< <i>Dave Bowers writes about it in one of his recent five-cent nickel books ---
I think the Guide Book of Shield and Liberty Head Nickels. I don't
have a copy handy at the moment, but I'm 99% sure he discusses the
term in some detail. (And yes, the connection is to a nickel streetcar or
carriage fare.) >>



I have the book out and am scanning through it. Thank you for the tip.

Edited to add: Between the sections on Shield Nickels and Liberty Nickels there is an interlude about amusement parks, many of them operated by trolley, streetcar or interurban lines to give people reason to ride said conveyances for the cost of a nickel, but nothing about "jitneys."

OldEastside

Wow, I never heard it as reference to a coin, I drove a Jitney for years hauling and building up loads
of lumber, using my jitney, it was a Clark built in 1942 and was war surplus bought by the Lumber Co.
I worked for, I always told people it my jitney pulled out the Enola Gay from her hanger that fateful day,
of course it was BS, but alot of people just said "REALLY"

Steve

CaptHenway

An interesting reference:

linky

CaptHenway

Another reference:

linky 2

Dentuck

<< <i>

<< <i>Dave Bowers writes about it in one of his recent five-cent nickel books ---
I think the Guide Book of Shield and Liberty Head Nickels. I don't
have a copy handy at the moment, but I'm 99% sure he discusses the
term in some detail. (And yes, the connection is to a nickel streetcar or
carriage fare.) >>



I have the book out and am scanning through it. Thank you for the tip.

Edited to add: Between the sections on Shield Nickels and Liberty Nickels there is an interlude about amusement parks, many of them operated by trolley, streetcar or interurban lines to give people reason to ride said conveyances for the cost of a nickel, but nothing about "jitneys." >>





It might have been in his Guide Book of Buffalo and Jefferson Nickels --- although
I seem to recall the term predating the Buffalo and having more of a "V nickel" connection.

ricko

I heard the term many times as a kid, but it always referred to a 'well used' vehicle....Cheers, RickO

GoldClause

I remember these. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jitney_Jungle

ProofArtworkonCircs

You can't trust everything you read in historical non-fiction.
I remember a piece on circa 1840 horsecars in NYC. There was trough that ran the length of the car for you to put your nickel (sic) in and it would roll up to the driver. One stranger to the city was so impressed thst he put in a whole roll of nickels to watch them roll. This was years before there were any nickels of any type.

sparky64

In Alan Herbert's book Coin Clinic, Chapter 52 - Slang, Nicknames he listed for 5-cents: nickel, JITNEY, slug, buffalo & jeffs.

Dentuck

Tom, I think you and Ken Bressett are brain-linked!

I was wandering the campus of Colorado College this morning, looking
for Loomis Hall --- this being my first ANA Summer Seminar --- when
I got caught in a brief rain flurry. I called Ken to tell him I was on
my way, temporarily taking shelter from the rain, and would be there
soon to register and talk shop.

He said, "Tell me where you are, and I'll see if I can find someone to
come 'round with a jitney and pick you up."

Yes, a jitney.

I quickly checked my pockets for Buffalo nickels, and, finding none
(and not really being able to tell him where I was, beyond
"Standing in the foyer of a red-brick building next to another
red-brick building"), I decided to hoof it.

CaptHenway

<< <i>In Alan Herbert's book Coin Clinic, Chapter 52 - Slang, Nicknames he listed for 5-cents: nickel, JITNEY, slug, buffalo & jeffs. >>



Great! Does he give any origin of the term?

TwoSides2aCoin

Jitney is a ride that cost more than the bus but less than a cab, where the rider doesn't have to wait as long, gets a more comfortable "jitney", with better service, faster arrival to his destination & with little downside risk. In numismatics that seems impossible and foreign to me that "jitney" would have the same as the value of a nickel. It would be great to get across town for a nickel. Must be the old days. A jitney today would need to be called an ASE if we are to liken the value of one to the other.

sparky64

<< <i>

<< <i>In Alan Herbert's book Coin Clinic, Chapter 52 - Slang, Nicknames he listed for 5-cents: nickel, JITNEY, slug, buffalo & jeffs. >>



Great! Does he give any origin of the term? >>



No he doesn't state the origin for that particular term. It's just on a list.

CaptHenway

<< <i>Jitney is a ride that cost more than the bus but less than a cab, where the rider doesn't have to wait as long, gets a more comfortable "jitney", with better service, faster arrival to his destination & with little downside risk. In numismatics that seems impossible and foreign to me that "jitney" would have the same as the value of a nickel. It would be great to get across town for a nickel. Must be the old days. A jitney today would need to be called an ASE if we are to liken the value of one to the other. >>



That is my understanding of a jitney as transportation. As to the value of a nickel back then, I have read that many taverns around the turn of the last century offered a smorgasbord style lunch for a nickel to get you to come in and buy a few nickel beers to wash it down.

And the nickel might have been the price of a basic short ride, with longer trips being negotiable.

One of the sources I linked to said that the term was used in San Francisco (though not exclusively there). With all of the hills there, a short ride to the top of a hill might well be worth a nickel to some people. This is of course mere speculation on my part.

However, we still have no idea how a five cent piece came to be known as a jitney, and whether the coin was named after the ride, or the ride was named after the coin.

CaptHenway

I have located two contemporary, but unfortunately quite contradictory, references to the origin of the term “jitney” as it refers to a coin.

The first appeared in “The Numismatist” in July of 1926 (P. 406):


WHERE THE WORD “JITNEY” CAME FROM

“Jitney, a word used intermittently and in various sections of the United States for many years, and which suddenly sprang into general use at the time the five-cent busses and flivvers were striving to settle the local traffic problems of many cities, had a curious origin. The origin of the word has been explained in several ways, the authorities generally agreeing it was a Southern negro expression closely associated with the game of craps.

Col. William H. T. Shade, owner and editor of a newspaper in Lake City, Iowa, however, seems to have traced the word to its beginning. He was at one time business manager of Billy Cleveland’s minstrels (afterward Cleveland and Haverley’s), and heard the story at first hand.

A minstrel troupe was playing Baton Rouge, La., in a theater where the highest gallery was reserved for negroes. No gallery tickets were sold, a member of the troupe being placed at the door to take cash. The door was in a poorly lighted space, and later the collector discovered two-score of plain metal disks the size of a five-cent piece, that had been passed as nickels.

One of the minstrels showed the disks to a negro, who explained: “Dem’s jitneys.”

They were jettons – the metal disks used as markers in a French gambling house. A negro attendant had stolen the jettons and was passing them as money. The minstrel troupe seized upon the word, and thereafter a five-cent piece was a jitney, and the word spread until it came into common use.”


This colorful, richly detailed and hopelessly unreliable account was attributed to a newspaper clipping. It was followed in the November issue (P. 627) with this:

ORIGIN OF THE WORD “JITNEY”

“A few months ago we published one version of the origin of the word “jitney,” which at least seemed plausible. Another version was recently published in the daily press, as follows:

The five-cent bus, or, rather, the bus that charges a five-cent fare, has become an institution in some American towns. But why is it a “jitney?”

This word is a combination of two Mexican words, expressing “slight value,” which, after the Mexican War, crossed the Rio Grande in company with many Spanish colloquialisms. It was used by American gamblers in the sense of “coppers” in referring to small stakes, “chicken feed” of the Mexicans.

So it came to be applied to our five-cent piece, and just as the cent to a street urchin is a “meg,” the dime a “dimmo,” in the parlance of crap game, a nickel is a “jit.” This is how the motor bus charging a five-cent fare came to be called a “jitney bus” and then just a “jitney.””

By way of reference, the Mexican War occurred in 1846, while our copper-nickel five cent coin did not begin until 1866. However, we did have a silver half dime in circulation in 1846, and to the typical non-numismatist the two coins were equivalent.

Can anyone suggest what Mexican expression meaning “slight value” could sound similar to “jitney?”

Many thanks to Barbara Gregory, current Editor of The Numismatist, for helping me find these items.

TD

oreville

I wished the jitney still cost a buffalo nickel.

I have some dateless ones that would work.