Throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Alsta made beautifully-engineered wristwatches for stylish men and women of intellectual and creative substance. People who required precision and robustness; scientists, engineers and industrialists as well as style-setters and the self-made. It succumbed in the late 1970s, along with many independent watchmakers, to the “quartz crisis”. Hundreds of watch manufacturers went out of business as the world feared the end for mechanical watches. Sadly, before this vision was seen to be unfounded, many respected names, including Alsta, disappeared.
Alsta was resurrected in 2014 and after two years in the making, our first wristwatch for over 40 years was released in 2017. We were inspired by the Nautoscaph dive watch as worn by Richard Dreyfuss as Matt Hooper in the classic movie, Jaws and we chose the Nautoscaph II to revive and lead the resurrection of Alsta in the 21st Century. We are thrilled that the Nautoscaph II has been so well received by Alsta enthusiasts and by new discoverers of the brand.