Three centuries apart
Today I present this new wallet model - the New Pepys - released in limited edition.
This design was developed in response to a very special artefact, a seventeenth century wallet belonging to the famed diarist Samuel Pepys. These two wallets - new and old - were presented alongside one another at an exhibition at Leathersellers' Hall, the home of the Worshipful Company of Leathersellers in the old city of London. The original was made by an unknown craftsman in the year 1687. My new rendition, crafted some 330 years later, aims both to honour and to update the original.
The New Pepys is available in limited edition - five examples are now ready for purchase on a first come first served basis. I'm excited to see where they will find themselves in the years, perhaps even the centuries, to come.
The 1687 Original
Samuel Pepys is well know in Britain but perhaps less so elsewhere. At various times he was an MP and Chief Secretary to the Admiralty but he is best known for the remarkably frank diary he kept during some of the most pivotal events in London's history including the Great Plague and the Great Fire of London.
Pepys' original wallet was made in Constantinople in the late seventeenth century and is thought to have been presented to him by a diplomat from the Ottoman empire. It is in remarkable condition for an item so old, a testament to choice of material and precision of workmanship. The wallet is now under the care of the National Leather Collection.
The National Leather Collection was set up in 1946 under its original name, The Museum of Leather Craft, by John Waterer. Since the early days its role has been to collect items of leather from around the world, preserving them for future generations. The Collection comprises an archive of historic, unusual and important objects of leather, including everything from neolithic hide bowls, royal treasure chests and fragments of the dead-sea scrolls.