Gas meters and flips

[Grant Barrett]

I've got a query from a fellow who's got an R&B radio show (online
only, I think) and wants to puzzle out some of the lyrics to a song
called  "A Tip On The Numbers" which was released by Slim Gaillard &
His Flat Foot Floogie Boys in 1941. Slim was also part of the duo Sam
and Slim. They show up in the Black newspapers as early as 1938.

The song is about the numbers game, a form of gambling that's very
much like the Pick 3 you can now legally play in state lotteries. Slim
sings a few numbers to play on certain days of the week, and then at
about 1:13 there's a spoken bit that includes this exchange:

[quote]

Look here, [?], you got a couple of gas meters you can lay on me, you
know?

Gas meters! A gas meter?

Gas meter.

I got a deuce of flips I'll lay on ya. [?]

A deuce of flips! Unh unh. Well, I'll tell ya old man, I need a couple
of GAS meters.

[end quote]

The questions: what is "flip"?

 From context surrounding this quote, it's clear they're talking about
money. The song's about gambling, for one thing. For another, in the
part after the quote above, one fellow tells the other that he's just
received his welfare check.

I agree with my correspondent that "gas meter" is a quarter, because,
as he says, you used to have to put money in the gas meter on the
house in order to get any gas out of it. Clarence Major's "Dictionary
of Afro-American Talk" includes that meaning and dates it to the
1940s. A quote from Helen Trace Tysell's "The English of the Comic
Cartoons" in American Speech (vol. 10, no. 1, Feb. 1935, p. 53) adds a
bit of confirmation that gas meters took quarters: "That dog-goned gas
meter swallers quarters like a elephant swallers peanuts."

My correspondent also believes that a "flip" is a coin but he's not
sure of the denomination, except that, if "gas meter" is a quarter,
then a "flip" is probably a smaller coin. It makes me think of penny-
pitching, but that's only a guess. Green's Cassell's Dictionary of
Slang includes "flip"="a bribe or tip. [one 'flips' the recipient a
coin]" but who can say if it's pertinent?

I suppose that "flip" could be a clipping of "flipper"=hand and the
one fellow could be telling the other when he says "I got a deuce of
flips," more or less, "I'm not giving you money but I've got nothing
but a pair of empty hands (that I'll smack you around with)."

I've checked HDAS, DARE, Gold's Jazz Lexicon, the American Thesaurus
of Slang, a few other dictionaries and a few of the newspaper
databases but I'm not coming up with anything convincing.

I've uploaded the song so you can hear it:

http://dtww.org/slimgaillard/

Thanks, in any case.

Grant Barrett
gbarrett at worldnewyork.org
113 Park Place, Apt. 3
Brooklyn, NY 11217
(646) 286-2260

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