Will we see President Obama wearing this watch in the coming months? More to the point will we hear him wearing it? It’s the Vulcain 50’s Presidents’ Watch – a classic model echoing both the legend of the Cricket alarm movement and the mark it made on history by propelling the Vulcain Cricket to become known as ‘The Presidents Watch’. This all new 50’s Presidents’ watch houses the newly developed Vulcain self-winding movement, Calibre V-21.

In the 1950s, in Switzerland’s Neuchâtel Jura region, Vulcain’s engineers and master-watchmakers were the first to miniaturise a striking mechanism with an alarm sound powerful enough within the confines of a wristwatch to still be genuinely functional. Since then successive American presidents have succumbed to its charms.

About the Vulcain Cricket

The new Vulcain Cricket is an alarm watch inspired by a model from the Fifties. Elegant, and understated, the 42 mm-diameter case is available in rose gold and steel versions and is water-resistant to 50 metres.

Faithful to timepieces of the era, the dial has a slightly cambered circumference and features applied hour-markers and Arabic numerals, as well as Dauphine hands with a decidedly Fifties design. The 50s Presidents’ Watch is also fitted with a cambered sapphire crystal and a sapphire crystal caseback adorned with the stylised “V” for Vulcain.

The dial comes in a choice of anthracite or silvered colours for the rose gold model, and in silvered, anthracite or smoky grey for the steel version. The Louisiana alligator leather strap is fitted with a rose gold buckle on the 18K rose gold version or a folding clasp with a safety pushpiece for the steel version.

The new self-winding Cricket V-21 alarm movement was developed from the Cricket Calibre V-10. The alarm function sounds for a full 20 seconds while the movement has a balance oscillating at 18,000 vibrations per hour and a 42-hour power reserve.

If nothing else it’ll give the President something else to get alarmed about other than the US trade deficit.