note-shavingn.

1809 W. Irving Hist. N.Y. I. iii. ii. 138 The evils produced by the precious metals, such as avarice, covetuousness, theft, rapine, usury, banking, note-shaving, lottery-insuring, and the whole catalogue of crimes and grievances were then unknown.

1828 Yankee (Portland, Maine) 1 52/1 [By] the system of note-shaving that prevails here..the industrious and active are held in a state of bondage to the more wealthy and more lazy.

1855 P. T. Barnum Life 138 Had I termed the deed an extortion or note-shaving..the verdict might have been different—but I had called the act ‘usury’.

1902 W. N. Harben Abner Daniel v. 38 He began to utilize this capital in ‘note shaving’, and other methods of turning over money for a handsome profit.

1911 R. D. Saunders Col. Todhunter viii. 113 Old Eph Tucker was a note-shaver long before he was a politician, and he's got note-shavin' in his blood bigger'n a mule.

2001 Business Hist. Rev. (Nexis) Summer Precisely what kind of discounting of notes he did we cannot know... Had he gone in for ‘note-shaving’—and we only have his word for it that he did not—he would not have been alone.