[Ads-l] Too rich for my blood

[Steven Losie]

TOO RICH FOR MY BLOOD (no OED entry)

Maybe my searching skills are failing me at the moment, but I cannot find
this idiom in the OED. It doesn't seem to appear in Green's Dictionary of
Slang, either. I was able to find it in Patridge's Dictionary of Catch
Phrases (1992), where it is dated to 1975, and defined as "Too expensive
for me."

This is the earliest I was able to find of the phrase in its idiomatic
form, though it uses "his" as the possessive instead of "my":

[begin quote]
He is a good reader and very fond of it, but objected to the heavy
religious newspapers furnished by the Christian people of Lawrence for use
of the prisoners, as "too rich for his blood," and wanted "something of a
milder and more digestible character, like Harper's Weekly, or the New York
Ledger."
[end quote]
Source: "Put Back Again." The Kansas Daily Tribune (Lawrence, KS), 29 Jan
1879, p.4, col.4 (Newspapers.com)
Link:
https://www.newspapers.com/image/61092189/?match=1&terms=%22too%20rich%20for%20his%20blood%22

This is the earliest I could find that insinuates a gambling context, where
the phrase is so often found. However, in the full article, no gambling is
mentioned - it's about a round-up of "drunks" paying "the usual fines". As
before, the phrase here is formed with "his" instead of "my":

[begin quote]
He paid a former fine of fifty dollars, but the last deal was too rich for
his blood and he is obliged to recede from his position of high roller.
[end quote]
Source: "Police Pickings." Kansas City (MO) Times, 19 December 1879, p.8,
col.3 (Newspapers.com)
Link:
https://www.newspapers.com/image/649195656/?match=1&terms=%22too%20rich%20for%20his%20blood%22


The earliest I could find where it is unequivocally used in a card-playing
context, and also uses "my":

[begin quote]
I lay down my cyards. Dis ere game is too rich for my blood.
[end quote]
Source: "More Than He Could Stand." Brooklyn Life (Vol.3, No.75), 8 August
1891, p.13, col.2 (Google Books)
Link:
https://books.google.com/books?id=p6hEAQAAMAAJ&pg=RA21-PA13&dq=%22too+rich%22

Note that the 19 August 1891 edition of the New York Evening World cites
Munsey's Weekly as the original source of the above article, but I could
not find the relevant volume online (I think it must be in Vol.5 of
Munsey's but Hathitrust and the Internet Archive start with Vol.6).
Link:
https://www.newspapers.com/image/163755757/?match=1&terms=%22too%20rich%20for%20my%20blood%22%20fold%20cards

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