Inside WOLF 1834: How Five Generations Built a Legacy of Watch Care & Innovation

For nearly 200 years, WOLF 1834 has been helping collectors protect, preserve, and enjoy their most treasured timepieces.

In this exclusive WatchDNA interview, we sit down with Simon Wolf, CEO and fifth-generation owner of the family business, to explore the remarkable story behind one of the most respected names in watch accessories and storage solutions.

From handcrafted watch boxes to cutting-edge watch winders and collector systems, WOLF has built its reputation by combining tradition, innovation, and timeless design. Simon shares how the company has evolved across five generations while remaining true to its founding mission: protecting the stories that watches carry.

💬 In this episode, we discuss:
⌚ The history of WOLF and its origins dating back to 1834
👨‍👩‍👦 How five generations of the Wolf family have shaped the brand
⚙️ The innovation behind WOLF’s watch winders and collector solutions
🎨 Balancing craftsmanship, design, and technology
🌍 The evolving needs of today’s watch collectors
🚀 What’s next for one of the most iconic family-owned brands in the watch industry

Whether you’re a seasoned collector or just beginning your watch journey, this conversation offers a fascinating look at the products and people helping preserve horological passion for generations to come.

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Transcript

0:00

So maybe we can go to England to actually figure out the next collection. Why not? Great. Why not? Everyone, I am very pleased to be here with Simon the Wolf, Mr. Simon Wolf. Thank you so much for having us in your booth. You're very welcome. Thanks for coming. Thank you. So on Watch DNA, we're all about educating our community about watches, but also about all the accessories available for the watch lovers out there. And so obviously Wolf is a brand that is well known in the accessory segments. So quickly, there's a lot of people that know about the brand and a lot of people that don't know about the brand. We're a 190-year-old company, actually 191 years this year, and that's five generations of the same family, and I'm the fifth. So I've been around in the business since I was 19 years old. Okay. It all started in 1834. My great-great-grandfather came up with this idea. He was a silversmith and he decided to put his silver into boxes, and that was the genesis of the business. Fast forward about 160 years, and we started looking at ways to take care of watches. We'd always made beautiful jewelry cases and made great watch boxes, but the watchwinder business I always felt was a little underserved. So we looked at how a watch is influenced over a period of 24 hours. And then we said, okay, let's engineer what happens to a human walking around with a watch on their wrist over 24 hours. And so all of our modules work on a 24-hour basis. There's activity and then there's rest periods. Really? Okay. What that means is your watch, when you're wearing it on your wrist, has a certain amount of activity. You move. But these days, we walk down the street with our phone in our hands, we drive a car, we sit like that. We're not as we're not sedentary, but we don't move as much as as we should to keep the main spring having some pressure on it. So watch winder from Wolf is an ideal solution for keeping your watch wound when it's not on your wrist. Okay, so um one question that I know Kaggle has a few questions for you already know you sit here. Um so obviously we're looking at a future and then uh the what is do you have any model that you have that you uh proud to launch now that you want to show to our community? Yeah, well there's there's several. Um about four years ago we launched the rocket, and the rocket is the smallest watch winder uh for travel on the planet. Do you have one around the air? I have it right here, yeah. Yeah, bro, let's check it out. What I did to do was find a way to re-engineer everything that's inside a normal watch winder. So that means the drive shaft, the gearbox, uh the battery, um, and inside here is a uh a computer chip that sits on a PC board, printed circuit board. So all of that had to be reduced in size. And so we came eventually to this, which is incredibly compact. It actually is the same volume as a watch roll, it's a little shorter and a little wider than a watch roll. So it is very, very small. It's got a lithium battery, so it's great to travel with. It does 900 turns bidirectional, so it's keeping most watches, nearly all watches, wound. Um, so you can see here, and it's got a lovely finish to it, and you've got the back here, the on-off switch. Yeah, and you can actually daisy chain these together so you can have a whole set of them if you wanted to, um, winding your watches. But of course, it's so small, it fits in your bag, either your luggage or or or a carry-on. Obviously, it's like it's a great product, but I would call it a an entry level for somebody that doesn't have a watch winder and wants to start with this first watch to take care of it when he doesn't worry. And especially if they like to travel because it's so compact and you can plug it in anywhere and uh you're off to the race suit. Yeah. Ralph, I have this question to you for anyone that wants to buy their first watchwinder, what are the criteria that they need to look into before making their decision? So, what you what you can do is you can go to our website, uh wolf1834.com, navigate to the bottom, and there's watch specifications, click on that, you then put in your the the make uh the brand of the watch and the model, and we will we then populate that with um how many turns per day and what direction. So that's a sort of starting point. Then you can decide between a pro pre-programmed uh watch winder, which this is pre-programmed and uh and uh the entry-level winders that we have are pre-programmed, so you don't have to think, you just turn it on and it goes. Yeah, this is 900 turns bidirectional. Okay, I always recommend this is actually sort of an add-on winder. If you really wanted to start, you go for a single British racing, uh, or you go for a uh app controlled Earth, which is something else we should talk about because that's all controlled by an app. Uh, and then you have the ability to um choose how many turns per day and and what direction. And the unique thing about a wolf is that we count the turns. So the watch brands tell us how many turns the watch needs to take a reasonable uh um attention on the main spring. So we don't make that up, we get it from the watch brands, we put it into my database. So you are in conversation with all the watch, right? Find out. Yeah, okay. So we have that information, so that will lead you to making that decision on what watch winder you you might need. So um it starts there, and then it is aesthetic, so we have lots of collections, lots of styles, lots of looks. Um, and so you could choose from a Riddish racing green or a black or an Axis, which has got a copper, uh sort of a mesh copper faceplate. Is that just one that we're in attractive? Yeah, that's uh called Axis. You know, the a watch has an axis, so we named it Axis many years ago, and I can actually just show you here, if I turn it off, you see it it goes back to the start position. So you can put the cuff in in any position, it'll always go back to that position. So if I turn it on, I can then choose um how many turns. So this is set at 950. I can sorry, I'm my fingers in the way, but you can see it's going all the way up to 1200 turns per day, and then I have directional control. This is clockwise, anti-clockwise, and then bidirectional. You see the two arrows there. It also has a start delay. So if you have a watch with a power reserve, you can take it down to here. This is 24 hours, yeah, but you can go down to six, and what that means is it won't engage the program that you've set until six hours have elapsed. Okay. That means that the mainspring won't be given any extra. So this is called Athos. Okay. Um, it's it's covered in a bio-based material, so we don't really use leather anymore. We've moved away from that. It's not good for the cows, it's not good for the planet, and it's not good for your health if you eat too much meat. Okay. So this material is a bio-based, it's a combination of uh corn, um, the waste uh from the corn industry, um uh bamboo, um, and we also use a lot of apple waste as well. So it's it's it's an amazing material. Looks and feels just like leather. We have another collection in the front that's and I don't know if you notice, but it matches perfectly my shirt. Yeah, I'm a green guy, I love green. So this is a um uh fire and security rated safe. Okay, that's good. So yeah, it's uh um UL rated, yeah, and uh it's got as many winders in it as you like, up to 20. Okay. So if you had 20 winders, you wouldn't have any drawers. Um less or more winders means you have less or more drawers. And for the drawers, can you custom main or custom which one? Yep, there are different inserts that go inside. Yeah, okay. But more watches or more uh places for jewelry or um cash or whatever you would uh be putting in there. Yeah. Sound wine question are you going to be launching kind of like an upgraded version of this product in the coming years? Um upgraded version. Well, this is this is pretty much uh top end luxury. Um there will there's a lot of um time piece as well. Yeah, it goes we we have um another um uh design that we're working on, which is a bit larger. Okay, and it comes with a cabinet, so you can have it in a wood cabinet or a biobase leather material cabinet. Maybe the question is the quantity of watching the side because as you know, when you uh start to become a wash uh collector and aficionados, usually you cannot stop, and so there are a lot of people have multiple. And when you when you when you asked me that question earlier and you were saying, you know what what my watch which watch winder and uh you know we we tend to say a single winder, but I want to say a triple um because then if okay, it's a it's a good sale for the company, but it means they're gonna buy another watch. And I love people who love watches because um we we take care of the many occasion that's what I love about watches, is for me it's not about the timepiece. For me, it's about the story and the events that happen when you purchase, receive it as a gift, things like that. But I have many many watches, and I have to say that I'm not an aficionado. I I love what they are, I love the fact that they are they've got this beating heart inside, and they are so strong. I mean you can drop a watch, you could throw the watch across the room, many of them you can throw across the room, and they still work. It's an amazing piece of miniature engineering. Yeah, yeah. So I don't actually know too much about the movement, so please don't ask me about that. I am nuts. I am very much how it looks, how it feels, how it looks and feels on my wrist. Yeah, um, of course, there's sentimental value as well. Yes. Um I buy quite a few watches, so there's there's there's sentimentality there, um, but it's because I just love that and I wanted it so I could buy it. Good, beautiful. And uh what can we expect? Uh obviously this is this year and this is amazing project, but is there anything, any uh any little detail that you can give us maybe for the near future about Wolf that you know? You know, some exclusivity design. My marketing director is standing over there, and sometimes when I'm asked this question, I blurt something out that's actually a secret. Oh, yeah. I did it, I did it a while ago. They're like, what are you doing? It's a blinking seat with it. Behind the better, that's we have a new collection coming out at the end of the year. Yeah, cool, correct. Which is it's revolutionary in the way that it's finished. I can't tell you any more than so. Maybe we can go to England to actually figure out the next collection. That why not? Great, why not? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, maybe you can have an exclusive, but we can we launch launch the launch with you. Alright, that's uh that sounds good. Yeah, yeah. Okay, maybe listen, I really appreciate it. Cause do you have any questions? Uh so far enough. Nine seconds. Alright, thank you so much. Lovely meeting. Real pleasure. Yeah, lovely meeting you too, sir. Thank you very much. And uh yeah, wish you all the best for the next few days. Thank you. And uh good luck with everything. And you guys make sure to go check it out, uh, their website, and also on watchgnl.com will have the full article as well so you can discover the brand. Wolf1834.co. Yes, 100%. Thank you again. Cheers, thank you. See you later, guys.