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Origin documented
“Ten a penny”
What it means
Common and of little value.
Where it comes from
A penny bought a great deal of the cheapest goods. Street sellers cried wares at ten or twelve a penny, and anything available on those terms was by definition unremarkable.
How sure are we?
Literal in origin, from the street trade of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The American equivalent, a dime a dozen, works on the same logic with different arithmetic.