“As many watch historians and fans know, there was in the past a tradition of presenting a Vulcain Cricket to US Presidents. We wanted the great story to continue and also because our family has always wanted to have good relations with the USA. My father and his family escaped from advancing Russians (Soviets) in 1939.”
Keijo Paajanen – 2012
You couldn’t really call it fate, it seemingly had all of the earmarks of a grand marketing plan.
But as Branch Rickey once famously opined – “Luck is the residue of design”. The next chapter of the Cricket and Presidents would be written by two families – one in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland the other in Helsinki, Finland. I have come to think of the late 80s, 90s and early 00s as the Ditisheim/ Paajanen era.
Up until 1988, the partnership between the Vulcain Cricket and the Presidents of the United States was on more than one occasion the culmination of a wonderful set of coincidences. Yes, Vulcain was wise enough to capitalize on the fact that several US Presidents wore a Vulcain Cricket through some great advertising back in the 50s, but no watch had ever been presented to a President (sitting, future or former) by Vulcain. Although Michel Ditisheim had sent a Cricket addressed to the attention of Mikhail Gorbachev (care of the Kremlin) back in 1987, it remained unknown to him (Ditisheim) whether or not the watch had indeed arrived and been accepted by Gorbachev. And not unlike when peanut butter met jelly, fate would bring two families together who would actually create the tradition that has been misunderstood for so long by so many.
So I turn back to a conversation that I had with Keijo Paajanen back in 2012. Keijo explained that through a meeting he and his father had with Michel Ditisheim in Switzerland, the idea to manufacture and present a new version of the Vulcain Cricket was born. At that time (the late 1980s) Vulcain had essentially gone dormant, and Revue Thommen was manufacturing and marketing a Cricket alarm watch of its own.
This was at least in part due to the fact that Michel Ditisheim, the son of the Cricket’s creator, was then Director of MSR (Montres Suisse Reunion) and a share-holder of Revue Thommen. And therefore the Vulcain Crickets that were produced in this era bore the Revue Thommen logo on the crown and buckle of those presented to the Presidents and sold to the general public by the Paajanens.
At the time, the Paajanens also carried the Revue Thommen Cricket, but along with Mr. Ditisheim they felt that the Vulcain name should make a comeback and grace the dial of the Cricket that would be presented to visiting Presidents as well as sold (exclusively) to customers in Helsinki, Finland. The Paajanens ordered 100 new Vulcain Crickets, and the die was cast.
Tune in next time as the Cricket awakes from a long hibernation, takes flight once more and lands on the wrist of a native of Tampico, Illinois who would go on to be the Governor if California.