This popular expression Dime A Dozen likely originates somewhere in the 20th century when the cheaper composition of a dime changed.
Dimes, or disme's as they were called back in the late 18th century, have been produced since the 1790's. Dimes, for a time, were created mostly with silver and a little bit of copper. The dime was made small to keep its value higher than the materials used to create it; or in other words, if dimes were any bigger, the cost to make the coins would have exceeded their worth.
Eventually, in the year 1965, the composition of the dime changed from 90% silver and 10% copper, to 90% copper and 10% nickel, allowing them to be created at a lower cost. Dimes, now costing less to make with this new metal composition, were produced by the millions every year. Dimes became very plentiful, and thus the saying A Dime A Dozen was born.
The Common Phrase Used In Sentences:
"There's no need to buy fruit here, it's too expensive. Where we're going next, the fruit there is are plentiful; dime a dozen."
"Those dinner plates are not rare; they are sold for a dime a dozen down the street."
"Stop purchasing these costly collectable coins from the coin shop, and instead go online where they are a dime a dozen."
Note: For most old popular sayings, and idioms, finding the exact person or date in which a phrase was originated is impossible. What's provided is the earliest known date the phrase or saying was being used in.
Usually the phrase is a quote from an old newspaper, book, poem, play, etc. If it is already being used by a newspaper though, then the saying must already be common knowledge among the people of that time. This means the origin of the saying is older.
For instance, if someone or something from 1660 is being quoted using a particular phrase or saying, you can assume that the saying must be older, as it's already popular and being commonly used in 1660. How far back varies from phrase to phrase.
There are some cases though where determining the origin from an exact person is possible, however these are not common. In short, most of the origins for these sayings give you a date so you can get a rough idea on when these phrases were being used.
