presidents

Richard Nixon's Gold-Inlaid Browning Shotgun at Auction

In addition to Ernest Hemingway's safari hunting rifle that we wrote about on Wednesday, a rare gold-inlaid Browning 12-gauge automatic shotgun that was presented to president Richard Nixon in 1970 will be offered at James D. Julia Auctioneers' Important Firearms sale in Fairfield, Maine on March 14. The gun, estimated at $50,000 – $75,000, is also historically significant in that it was the two millionth Browning shotgun made. At one time destined for the Smithsonian, Nixon returned the gun to Browning Arms where it resided in their archives until it was given to the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

Gallery: Richard Nixon's Browning Shotgun

Tags: American presidents, Browning, browning+guns, browningguns, celebrity, Ernest Hemingway, firearm, gold, gun, hunting, James D. Julia, Maine, politics, presidents, Richard Nixon, rifle, shooting, shotgun

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Vulcain 50s Presidents' Alarm Watch

by Ariel Adams (RSS feed) —

Filed under: Timepieces / Watches

Swiss watch maker Vulcain is (re) releasing a watch with a look from the 1950s called the "50s President's Watch." Fans of the brand understand the name, but it might not make a lot of sense to others. Starting in the 1950s with (I believe) President Eisenhower, each US President has a Vulcain watch. Since then Vulcain has gifted timepieces to each new US President. People enjoyed the watch because Vulcain uses their Cricket mechanical alarm watches - which arguably were loud enough to wake people up.

This new 50s President's Watch will be 42mm wide in steel or yellow or red gold. Unlike the ones from the 1950s, it will have an automatic, versus manually wound Cricket movement. New Vulcain watches are pretty nifty, so I am not sure who the target market for these retro models will be. Then again, everyone is releasing "old" watch designs again, so I am sure these 50s President's Watches will have their nice. Price is 8,370 Swiss Francs in steel and 22,680 Swiss Francs in 18k gold.

Ariel Adams publishes the luxury watch reviews site aBlogtoRead.com.

Tags: 50s, cricket, presidents, vulcain, watch