Plack (coin)
A plack (Scottish Gaelic: plang) was an ancient Scottish coin of the value of four Scots pence or by 1707 one third of an English penny.[1]
In 1588 the word plack was also used to describe coins of the value of a penny or two pence, the "tuppences" having two dots placed next to the lion of Scotland. These twopenny placks are known as "hardheads" today.[2]
The coin appears in the old song:
- 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.
The word is probably derived from the ancient Flemish coin, a plaquette, in use before the introduction into the Netherlands of the French money reckoned by francs and centimes.
It can be found in the works of Robert Burns too:
- Nae howdie gets a social night,
- or plack frae them
- (Scotch Drink)
- Stretch a joint to catch a plack,
- Abuse a brother to his back.
- (To Gavin Hamilton)
See also
References
- MacKay, Charles – A Dictionary of Lowland Scotch (1888)
- ^ SND: plack
- ^ David Masson, Register of the Privy Council of Scotland: 1585-1592, vol. 4 (Edinburgh, 1881), pp. 317, 326; Nicholas Holmes, Scottish Coins: A History of Small Change in Scotland (Edinburgh, 1998), pp. 49-51.
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