Tosher Year 2: A Widening Perspective

The end of the 2013 (now over two weeks ago) marked the end of my second full year as a self-described "tosher." What is a tosher, you ask? It can mean "nonsense," or describe someone as "tidy and neat," and may also refer to anything made of copper or otherwise valuable. For the purposes of this piece, tosh is simply a thing or experience that one values.

Historically speaking, toshers were "sewer-hunters" who scoured the sewers of London in search of coins and other valuables. In a 2012 piece in Smithsonian Magazine entitled, "Quite Likely the Worse Job Ever,"  Mike Dash describes the interesting albeit dangerous life of 19th century toshers, and the how the work of journalist Henry Mayhew (1812-1887) revealed to the reading public some of the astounding ways toshers and others earned a living in Victorian London (the name his work is "London labour and the London poor; a cyclopaedia of the condition and earnings of those that will work, those that cannot work, and those that will not work (1851)).While my "tosher" experience is not half as bad-ass as that of Victorian-era toshers, I find their story interesting and worthy of reflection and--with due consideration--experimentation.

I performed such an experiment last year, scouring the streets almost everyday, while maintaining an accurate and systematic account of all the coins and bills I found for the entire year. The total came to $48.24, which I put into a savings account and later donated to charity. Encouraged by this result, I decided to repeat the experiment in 2013.

The results were as follows: 144 Quarters, 231 Dimes, 94 Nickels, 712 Pennies, $33 in assorted bills for a grand total of $103.92. In addition, I found $0.54 Canadian, and whilst in Ireland found €3.04, which I donated in full to a charity before hopping on the plane. This compares to last year's 59 Quarters, 117 Dimes, 44 Nickels, 459 Pennies, $15 in assorted bills, $0.00 Canadian, and €0.00. The improvement is marked, and I've already begun collecting for 2014.

More importantly, perhaps, is that over the course of 2013 I began to realize that coin and cash were not the only forms of "tosh" to be found by the modern tosher. The exercise involved alone pays a handsome dividend in the form of improved health and fitness, not to mention the aesthetic pleasure of spending time in nature and catching a few kick-ass sunrises and sunsets. In my case, the hunt for coins also frequently left me in the vicinity of some library or another, and I don't doubt the resulting reading improved my life-satisfaction tremendously. I might also add that searching for coins got me to become more familiar with my neighborhood, and explore areas beyond it where I wouldn't usually go. In this way, a tosher lifestyle can have a positive effect by expanding one's comfort-zone, and compelling one to pay closer attention to world around them.

In all its forms then, "tosh" not only has immediate value, but tends to earn interest over time. For instance, invested money earns interest in a bank or portfolio, exercise improves health, reading exercises our minds, and exploration expands them. I didn't have these notions two years ago when I began the tosher experiment--back then it was all about earning more money--and even during 2012's experiment, I often felt stressed if a few days went by without finding a coin. Still, the longer we work at it, the more apparent the inherent value of all these associated experiences has become, and thereby widened my view on the matter. This is a positive development, and I look forward to seeing what new discoveries will come in 2014.