Mixed Emotions

About the reconstituted Gallet -

Courtesy of Gallet

So here's the thing, I'd like to be as excited as everyone else I'm wondering if Mr. Kern's reach might have exceeded his grasp on this one. 

On the one hand, the previous custodian of Gallet would have been reported to the Watch Town authorities for child neglect if such a thing existed, so it is nice that someone with money and conviction has rescued it. That's good.

People might recall that Gallet had a rather janky business model under the prior caregiver. Prices were enough to make your eyes water, and there were only two very similar models available. An abortive pop-up at BaselWorld many years before the fair's collapse was one of the very few forays made.

On the other hand, it seems like a heavy lift for what it is - if I have read the press releases correctly, it seems that Breitling is assembling the Gallet collection. Now while that isn't exactly defacto white label assembly, it would seem that there is capacity to do this work in addition to the work required for Breitling, which given the downturn in Breitling's results this past year it is actually a sensible deployment of resources. So consider this my consultant's "atta-boy" ; )

But back to the pricing - and is the juice worth the squeeze? 

Gallet has four different model families, almost exclusively chronographs, with the least expensive model weighing in at a robust $2,900 for a time & date model. The chronographs start at $4,400 US, with the Gallet Classics setting you back $6,700 US. One would assume the price gap between the two is down to the use of Breitling's manufacture movement - the hand winding Breitling B09. Which begs the question - is the B09 a + $1,500 movement? Well, maybe yes, maybe no. But the $4,400 pieces sport what Gallet is calling the Gallet 23. The Gallet 23 also goes by the title Sellita SW510. This movement will fetch between $430 - $500 from independent parts suppliers. Meaning if you are buying in bulk you are certainly paying less. So this then begs the further question, is the B09 a $2,000 movement? In truth, I'm not saying that it is, and I'm not saying that it isn't. Watch brands are not charities - nor should they be. They take the risks, they create the product, market and sell them. It is a business. We all expect to be paid for our work ; )

So the question remains - at $4,400 is the market going to have the appetite for this?

Don't get me wrong - I would love to see Gallet do very well. It is a brand that was pretty much treated like a red-headed stepchild, and certainly derserved better than it got. So we will watch, and we will wait.

Vulcain And The Presidents - Book 2

Very excited to share the news with this shamelessly self-promoting plug!

The new version of the real history of the Vulcain Cricket and the US Presidents who owned one is actually a practically new book. If I had thought the first 20 years of putting the first book was a project, the last 3 years has been particularly grueling ; )

New photos, new historical tidbits, over 100 pages, and in hard cover. 

IMPORTANT - this is not a coffee table book. This is meant to be read, not displayed!

Pre-orders will start shortly, once the proof is back from the printer. Pricing will be as aggressive as I can make it, but please bear in mind that I am bearing all of the production costs ; )

Ordering will be through the Oberlin Watch Company website.

Stay tuned!

The Countdown to Election Day - The Cricket and the President of the United States Part 1

As we race towards election day here in the lower 48, it seemed as good a time as any to air out some actual facts about the Vulcain Cricket and the President of the United States -

The Greatest Marketing Campaign That Never Was (a marketing campaign) - Part 1

For the past 20 plus years, I have been writing about Vulcain, and more specifically the Vulcain Cricket and its relationship to various US Presidents. And what I've learned along the way is that there is a dearth of actual, factual information on how so many US Presidents (Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson and Nixon) came to be Vulcain Cricket owners. Several of my more well-heeled colleagues in the Fourth and Fifth Estate (and to some extent, yours truly as well) have sustained a fairly flawed belief that the Vulcain watch company had conceived of, and launched a marketing campaign to present a watch to each US Presidents. And after a visit to Vulcain HQ and a perusal of what documentation actually exists, it became quite clear to me that I needed a better source...

Well, all I can say is that it's good to have friends! A few calls were made, and Michel Ditisheim invited me to come over and talk about the Cricket, the Presidents, his friendship with the Paajanen family, and even a bit about life.

For those of you just turning in, Michel Ditisheim is perhaps the last, best link to the original Vulcain, the "middle" Vulcain and today's Vulcain. His father was the inventor of the original Cricket. Michel worked with the Paajanen family to help present Vulcain Cricket watches to former US Presidents in the 1990s and 2000s, and he was instrumental in shepherding Vulcain through the rocky quartz crisis and ultimately to its reemergence with new owners in Le Locle earlier this century. His father, Robert Ditisheim, was not unlike the guy who said "What if we slice the bread, before we sell it?" In other words, when he created the Vulcain Cricket, he brought to reality something many people wanted - they just didn't know it yet!

"It was a sensation!"  - Michel Ditisheim.

So what is agreed upon by everyone? The very first Vulcain Cricket to be presented to a sitting US President was given to Harry Truman by the White House Press Corps. It was not a gift from Vulcain. When I asked Mr. Ditisheim why they chose the Vulcain Cricket, his answer was elegantly succinct - "It was a sensation!"

It is important to understand that at the time it was introduced, the Cricket represented something that had not been seen before. A wrist watch with an alarm. What was often referred to as a "secretary on the wrist".  It's interesting that many of us think of alarm watches as useful for waking us up. But for you younger readers out there, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and we typed out our correspondence with an Olivetti Lettera 22 -

Courtesy of Wikipedia

We did not receive Google Reminders on our cell phones. Owners of alarm watches would use them frequently during the day to set the alarm for meeting reminders, etc.

Yes, the Vulcain Cricket was indeed a sensation. So it made sense that the press corps would present such a watch to President Truman. But then the history gets murkier. 

So stay tuned, we're going to shed some much needed light!

The Greatest Marketing Campaign That Never Was (a marketing campaign) - Part 3

Of the US Presidents since Truman it is generally agreed that only 2 have never received or worn a Vulcain Cricket - George W. Bush and John F. Kennedy. Insofar as the forty third president, the reason most often cited was that he has not visited Helsinki, Finland from the time of his presidency until a few years ago (more on that later). When it comes to President Kennedy, it is safe to say that unlike his predecessor, Eisenhower, he neither purchased one or was presented one prior to his election. And as history will note, he was assassinated before the end of his first term, and any symbolic post-Presidential presentation that might have placed a Vulcain Cricket on his wrist were made impossible.

Fate would bring a former school teacher from Stonewall, Texas to the White House in 1963. 

Arnold Newman, White House Press Office (WHPO) - Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library and Muesuem - Archived 

Lyndon Baines Johnson was, to put it mildly, a man who was as much shaped by history as he helped shape it. Born on a farm in Stonewall, Texas in 1908, through a series of events that would have made Forest Gump blush, he became first Vice President, then President of the United States in less than 3 years. From what can only be called modest beginnings in a small farm house, it would be fair to say that his ascension could not be called typical. Following a spell as a school teacher, he entered politics as a legislative secretary to Richard M. Kleberg, who won a 1931 special election for a congressional seat representing Texas in the US House of Representatives. The rest, as they say, is history.

President Johnson was perhaps the all-time Vulcain Cricket fan. How and when he got his initial Cricket is, again, shrouded in a bit of mystery. 

Courtesy of Vulcain

What is known is that he was so enamored with the Cricket that while attending a conference in Switzerland, he deployed several staff members across Geneva with instructions to lay hands to as many Vulcain Crickets as possible so that he could present them as gifts. The word around the campfire is that this horological scavenger hunt netted 200 Vulcain Crickets. While who exactly was presented these Crickets is largely lost to history, what we do know from the LBJ Library's archive is that on April 2, 1964 President Johnson did present a Vulcain watch to Secretary McNamara in the Cabinet Room of the White House during a "special" meeting.  I feel confident that if you asked any heads of marketing working for a watch company, they would be over the moon if a year's worth of pay-to-play content on instagram, Facebook or any other social media channel netted a sale of 200 watches - and from such a prestigious client! Needless to say, they clearly did do everything bigger in Texas. 

The cost to Vulcain for this amazing return on marketing investment? Exactly CHF 0! Once again, the Vulcain Cricket proved to be the world's most successful Swiss watch brand "ambassador". President Johnson even went so far as to customize at least one of his Crickets with his initials at the 9 o'clock position.

Courtesy of the NAWCC

While there are more than a few images of Johnson wearing other watches, it is safe to say that the Cricket from La Chaux-de-Fonds was one of his favorites.

President Johnson (in the end) opted not to seek the nomination to run again for the Presidency in 1968, and yet another unlikely presidential candidate would emerge, one who was already wearing a Cricket on his wrist when destiny called.

The Greatest Marketing Campaign That Never Was (a marketing campaign) - Part 1

For the past 20 plus years, I have been writing about Vulcain, and more specifically the Vulcain Cricket and its relationship to various US Presidents. And what I've learned along the way is that there is a dearth of actual, factual information on how so many US Presidents (Truman, Eisenhower, Johnson and Nixon) came to be Vulcain Cricket owners. Several of my more well-heeled colleagues in the Fourth and Fifth Estate (and to some extent, yours truly as well) have sustained a fairly flawed belief that the Vulcain watch company had conceived of, and launched a marketing campaign to present a watch to each US Presidents. And after a visit to Vulcain HQ and a perusal of what documentation actually exists, it became quite clear to me that I needed a better source...

Well, all I can say is that it's good to have friends! A few calls were made, and Michel Ditisheim invited me to come over and talk about the Cricket, the Presidents, his friendship with the Paajanen family, and even a bit about life.

For those of you just turning in, Michel Ditisheim
is perhaps the last, best link to the original Vulcain, the "middle" Vulcain and today's Vulcain. His father was the inventor of the original Cricket. Michel worked with the Paajanen family to help present Vulcain Cricket watches to former US Presidents in the 1990s and 2000s, and he was instrumental in shepherding Vulcain through the rocky quartz crisis and ultimately to its reemergence with new owners in Le Locle earlier this century. His father, Robert Ditisheim, was not unlike the guy who said "What if we slice the bread, before we sell it?" In other words, when he created the Vulcain Cricket, he brought to reality something many people wanted - they just didn't know it yet!

"It was a sensation!"  - Michel Ditisheim.

So what is agreed upon by everyone? The very first Vulcain Cricket to be presented to a sitting US President was given to Harry Truman by the White House Press Corps. It was not a gift from Vulcain. When I asked Mr. Ditisheim why they chose the Vulcain Cricket, his answer was elegantly succinct - "It was a sensation!"

It is important to understand that at the time it was introduced, the Cricket represented something that had not been seen before. A wrist watch with an alarm. What was often referred to as a "secretary on the wrist".  It's interesting that many of us think of alarm watches as useful for waking us up. But for you younger readers out there, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, and we typed out our correspondence with an Olivetti Lettera 22 -

Courtesy of Wikipedia

 We did not receive Google Reminders on our cell phones. Owners of alarm watches would use them frequently during the day to set the alarm for meeting reminders, etc.

Yes, the Vulcain Cricket was indeed a sensation. So it made sense that the press corps would present such a watch to President Truman. But then the history gets murkier. 

So stay tuned, we're going to shed some much needed light!