Have Wordhunters found the original spiv?
Spiv was a genuine triumph, with Wordhunters providing an antedating of the word and perhaps locating the original spiv, Henry "Spiv" Bagster, via news reports of his misdeeds in the early 1900s. Etymologist Tania Styles explains why she was convinced enough by this evidence to mention Bagster in the etymology section for the spiv entry.
Tania Styles, OED Etymologist: If Henry 'Spiv' Bagster (alias Mills) were alive today, we might well describe him as a spiv. Born in 1883, he was quite a regular in the court report section of the national newspapers between 1903 and 1906, appearing before the judge on charges of petty theft, loitering, assaulting a police officer, and selling counterfeit goods.
Bagster's nickname is first recorded in 1904, 33 years before the new, improved first quotation provided by a Wordhunter. Unfortunately, we cannot add this 1904 example as an antedating of spiv because it records a name, not a common noun. We cannot be sure why Henry Bagster got his nickname-it may have nothing to do with either his wayward lifestyle or the subsequent history of the word spiv. However, three possibilities make him worth mentioning in our etymological discussion. On the one hand, it may be that Bagster was the original spiv, and that his nickname, however he acquired it, gave rise to the English word. Alternatively (and I think this is more likely), the existence of the nickname in 1904 might suggest that our word spiv was already in use at that early date, and that it was applied to Bagster in recognition of his dodgy dealings. Although we cannot reflect this in our quotation paragraph, we can accommodate it in the etymology section of our entry.