Bawbee

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A bawbee was a Scottish halfpenny. The word means, properly, a debased copper coin, equal in value to a half-penny, issued in the reign of James V of Scotland.

It was metaphorically used for a fortune by Sir Alexander Boswell, the son of the more famous James Boswell, the biographer of Dr. Johnson. It occurs in the song of Jennie’s Bawbee

Quoth he, "My goddess, nymph, and queen,

Your beauty dazzles baith my e'en",

But deil a beauty had he seen

But Jennie’s bawbee

Sir Alexander took the hint of his song from a much older one:-

A' that e'er my Jeanie had,

My Jeanie had, my Jeanie had,

A' that e'er my Jeanie had

Was ae bawbie

There's your plack, and my plack,

And your plack, and my plack,

And Jeanie's bawbie.

Brewer lists "Jenny's Bawbee" as meaning a "marriage portion".

The term "bawbee" was still being used in Lowland Scots in the 20th Century, and may still be in minor use somewhere. A popular song, The Crookit Bawbee, was recorded by The Alexander Brothers and Kenneth McKellar amongst others, and the tune remains a staple for Scottish country dance band music. The song has a rich suitor asking why his "bright gowd" and "hame... in bonnie Glenshee" are being turned down, the lady referring to a laddie when she was a young "bairnie", and her heart "Was gi'en him lang-syne, for this crookit bawbee."[1] Inevitably the rich suitor turns out to be the laddie returned to his love.

According to Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable,

The word "bawbee" is derived from the laird of Sillebawby, a mint-master. That there was such a laird is quite certain from the Treasurer's account, September 7th, 1541, "In argento receptis a Jacobo Atzinsone, et Alexandro Orok de Sillebawby respective."

But he also states "French, bas billon, debased copper money.)"