LOVE TOKENS FOUND IN THE RIVER THAMES

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V21 2018 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 21, Number 8, February 25, 2018, Article 33

Here is a very interesting item from the British newspaper The Guardian about coins made into love tokens and thrown into the Thames. I lived and worked near that river most of my life, but never heard of this tradition before. The most recent coin illustrated is a silver threepenny bit from 1919, such as were still in circulation when I was young.

Thanks! I can't say I'd heard of that tradition either. Is it true? I wonder if there are contemporary references to the practice. It's an interesting group of tokens regardless. -Editor

For centuries, suitors would carve names on coins before tossing them into the river. Mudlark Steve Brooker has unearthed hundreds of them.

During the reign of William III, in the second half of the 17th century, it was the fashion for a young man to give a crooked coin to the object of his affections.

The suitor would bend the coin, both to make it an amulet and to prevent it being reused. If the token was kept, it indicated that affection was reciprocated, but if the coin was discarded then it was a rejection.

Mudlark Steve Brooker has unearthed thousands of coins from the banks of the River Thames over the past 25 years. In spite of his appearance – chest-high bespattered waders, grizzled beard and clutching a yellow plastic bucket and trowel – Brooker is a romantic at heart. Of all the treasures he has discovered in the mud, he cherishes his collection of love tokens the most, even if his passion for collecting them might occasionally risk compromising his own romantic appeal. “The smell is so unbearable down there it’s unreal,” he says. “Even once you’ve had a shower you stink. My wife is a bit upset about it.”

With a river flowing forever to the sea, there is a sense of a connection to the infinite. There is also an undeniable romance in the notion of a lover secretly throwing a token into the water.

For centuries, smoothed coins were used as love tokens, with the initials of the sender engraved or embossed on the surface. Sometimes these were pierced, which gave recipient the option to wear it around the neck.

Brooker’s collection ranges from heavy silver coins with initials professionally engraved, to pennies worn smooth through hours of labour and painstakingly engraved letters. The amount of effort expended in working these coins – smoothing, engraving or cutting them – speaks of the longing of the makers.

It was not part of the conceit that someone might ever find these coins centuries later. We can only surmise that engraving your or your beloved’s name on a coin and throwing it into the water was a gesture to attract good fortune.

I reached out to Love Token Society President Carol Bastable to ask if this practice was common in the U.S. -Editor

I am not sure I have heard of that before but it makes some sense, like a wishing well but wishing for the person whose name is on the coin. The bent coins, usually referred to as "benders", are an early form of a love token except that they did not have engraving. I have heard that they were bent in doorjambs. Some of the traditions in England were different from what was done in the U.S. In contrast in the U.S., our bent coins (pine tree and oak tree shillings) were said to be bent to ward off witchcraft.