making money hand over fist

[Amy West]

Here's my 2 cents:

I believe that technique for stamping coins has been used for a *very
long time* --  at least since Anglo-Saxon times -- in England. Given
that we don't see the phrase show up until the 1800s, and not
connected with money in the first instance, I think we can question
the History Channel's assertion.

Like Mark, I have a certain image that comes to mind with the phrase.
Not of ladders, but of rope. When you're hauling in rope (or paying
it out) very quickly, that hand motion.

---Amy West

[PS I have a known bias against the History Channel.]

[PPS This might be one for Dave Wilton to tackle on his word origins
site if he hasn't already. No, I haven't checked.]

>  > 1825: W.N. GLASCOCK, _Naval Sketch-Bk. (1826) I.26 The French..weathered
>>  our wake, coming up with us, 'hand over fist', in three divisions.
>  > 1833 S. SMITH _Life Major J. Downing_ (1834) 116 They..clawed the money off
>>  of his table, hand over fist.
>>
>>     Might the original context have been a furious climbing motion (perhaps
>>  in an attack), with one hand grasping onto the rung of a ladder while the
>>  other hand reaches up to the next rung?  Then by extension, the clawing of
>>  money off the gambling table (one hand over the other, raking it all in) and
>>  hence: "making money hand over fist"?
>>
>>  Gerald Cohen
>>
>>  [from my colleague about History Channel program]:
>>
>  > <snip>
>>
>>  "The matter as I understand it...the phrase refers to the process by which
>>  money is made, in this sense it is equivalent to the more modern expression
>>  of 'printing money', both simply references to the manufacturing process.
>>   At one stage in the history of money it was made by first creating a flat
>>  sheet of a precious metal at a given thickness.  Then, much like using a
>>  cookie punch on cookie dough, one uses a cylindrical tool to stamp out round
>>  discs, the excess metal left over from the punches can then be re-melted in
>>  the next batch, so all the metal is preserved.  After the metal is cut into
>>  a disc a mallet and printing device are then used to stamp both sides of the
>>  coin.  The stamp is held in a fist like grip, the mallet is held in the hand
>>  and thus when you put your hand over your fist you are literally making
>  > money in this setting."

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