Unicorn and Sun, Moon & Stars Penny (The Simone Penny)

Released to mark the two-hundredth anniversary of the first known antique étui, debuted in December 1825 by Brasseux Aîné of the Palais Royal, the Simone Penny is a commemorative wax seal honoring preservation, lineage, and devotion to objects that endure.

This penny is named for Simone, steward of the largest private collection of antique étui seals in the world. Her work is guided not by accumulation but by care. She approaches étuis as cultural artifacts, meant to be understood, protected, and carried forward intact, both materially and symbolically. She is currently writing a book restoring the overlooked history of the étui, reweaving a lineage that time has partially obscured. When I first began designing the Hastings Étui, Simone was among the first people I shared the vision with. Our conversations were shaped by long perspective, what survives, what fails, and how seemingly small decisions determine whether an object lasts not just physically, but meaningfully, across generations.

The term penny holds its own symmetry. As a child in Germany, long before she owned a seal, Simone sealed letters with whatever was available, often pressing a single coin, a Pfennig, into warm wax. From those early gestures grew a lifelong devotion that now returns, quite literally, as pennies cast as seals.

The Simone Penny carries two complementary motifs, revealed as a surprise.

One side bears a unicorn. Across centuries of myth, art, and psychology, the unicorn has represented moral clarity, rarity, and inner integrity. In medieval bestiaries, it was believed to reveal itself only to those capable of sincerity rather than force. Its horn was said to purify poisoned water, restoring what had been harmed. The unicorn has never symbolized conquest. It stands instead for renewal, individuality, and the intact self, imaginative, untamed, and resistant to cynicism. To choose the unicorn is to honor what remains whole.

The reverse depicts the sun, moon, and stars, framed by a French inscription drawn from an antique wax seal in Simone’s collection: Je les conjure tous pour ton bonheur, “I invoke them all for your happiness.” Together, these celestial bodies form a complete vision of time and existence, day and night, constancy and change. To invoke them all is to offer a full blessing, gathering every force in service of another’s joy.

For me, this symbolism is personal. My son is Leo rising, guided by the sun. My daughter is Cancer rising, led by the moon. I see these celestial forces placed in service of those whose happiness I love most. And beyond that, they are offered to you. Each penny, each seal, is an act of invocation. I create them for your happiness.

Pour ton bonheur.