family

Tales of the ‘Wild’ – 400 wild years

Agate cutters, goldsmiths
and gemstone merchants:
the story of a family

The name of Wild is among those most frequently encountered in Idar-Oberstein. It is borne by several gemstone merchants and cutters. Members of this family were probably among the very first gemstone cutters in Idar-Oberstein. The coat of arms bears the date 1557.

family

Tales of the ‘Wild’ – 400 wild years

FIRST THINGS FIRST

The family history has been traced without a break back to the birth of Johann Nicol Wild in 1673. It began in classical manner: the agate cutter married the daughter of a colleague. Their son Johannes, born in 1711, learned the trade of goldsmith. Known as ‘alter Gehännes’, he was one of the founders of the goldsmiths’ guild. His son Johann Carl, called ‘Gehännese Carl’, was also a member.

family

Tales of the ‘Wild’ – 400 wild years

The beginning of an era

Gehännese Carl’s daughter Anna Eva was widowed at the tender age of 28. Later, she fell for the young goldsmith Johann Carl Werle, descended from minstrels from Strasbourg. She bore him a son in 1820 – but he married someone else.

family

Tales of the ‘Wild’ – 400 wild years

Forceful women ...

Illegitimate or not, Johann Carl Wild was Constantin Wild's great-grandfather. He was raised lovingly under the matriarchal wing and developed to become a man who was every bit as adventurous as he was ambitious and enterprising – just like his father, and his mother too for that matter.

family

Tales of the ‘Wild’ – 400 wild years

... Adventurous men

At 21, after his apprenticeship as a goldsmith, Johann Carl took to the road and worked as an assistant goldsmith in far-off Hamburg and Hanover. In 1845/46, he betook himself – what a journey! – to St. Petersburg, at that time the centre of goldsmithery. Whether or not he ever made the acquaintance of Peter Carl Fabergé, who first saw the light of day in 1846 as the son of a jeweller in the Russian capital and was later to become the most famous goldsmith in the world at the court of the tsar, we shall never know.

family

Tales of the ‘Wild’ – 400 wild years

Joh. Carl Wild IX

On his return, the much travelled Johann Carl Wild was given the nickname Russ-Carl. He didn’t take to that at all, so he had a look in the parish register and counted the number of his ancestors who had borne the name of Johann or Johannes since 1557. Now he called himself Joh. Carl Wild IX. His goldsmith’s business was flourishing; he entered the gemstone and cutting trade and founded J. C. Wild IX, Idar.

family

Tales of the ‘Wild’ – 400 wild years

HIGHLY DISTINGUISHED

He received awards at the world exhibitions in Philadelphia (1876), Sydney (1879) and Melbourne (1880). Considering how onerous and lengthy journeys were in those days, one wonders how often he can possibly have been at home in Idar-Oberstein. At any rate, his ascent was surely only possible with the help of his dynamic wife Caroline, who, quite by the bye, gave birth to nine children.

family

Tales of the ‘Wild’ – 400 wild years

On the way up ...

The youngest son, Wilhelm Constantin Wild (b. 1866), took over his father’s business, which has gone by the name of W. Constantin Wild & Co. since 1901. On land where a cherry orchard had housed the cutting-mill known as the Kirschgartenschleife, demolished about 1910, my grandfather WCW began to put up new buildings in 1911. The property, at Hauptstrasse 103, is still the registered office of the company and family seat to this day. He guided the firm, which at times boasted 150 employees, through war and hyper-inflation, times in which all the debts were bad and all the stocks abroad destroyed.

family

Tales of the ‘Wild’ – 400 wild years

... around the world

Constantin Wild's father Fritz, born in 1905, joined the company in 1928. He founded branches in Pforzheim, Berlin, Paris, London and Milan. In the 30s, long before the aeroplane had become an everyday means of travelling, he visited India and Egypt, still British colonies at the time, voyaged by ship several times to America and Brazil and often travelled in the East. After the Second World War all the assets had gone, and he had to start again from scratch.

family

Tales of the ‘Wild’ – 400 wild years

HERE AND NOW

That renaissance was a success; Fritz Wild ran the company until his death in 1984. Constantin Wild was just 20 – so his mother Christel held the fort until he had completed his training.

family

Tales of the ‘Wild’ – 400 wild years

HERE AND NOW

"Now it is I who am responsible for the family gemstone venture – in the fourth generation, as manager of the company founded by the ‘bastard’ Johann Carl Wild IX, a.k.a. Russ-Carl."