Around 2014 Glasgow based Businessman Angus MacFadyen decided to acquire the commercial rights of the by then defunct Alsta watch Brand. MacFadyen, a watch collector himself, happened to own a vintage Alsta Nautoscaph skin diver in his collection and became intrigued by this fairly unknown brand and started doing some research. He was pleasantly surprised by the extensive back catalogue of sports and dress watches from the 1950s, 60s and 70s Alsta had produced and he learned that the company stopped trading in the late 1970s.
OUR INSPIRATION
After rebuilding the portfolio of trademark ownership rights in key markets around the world, MacFadyen set off to find a manufacturing partner in Switzerland and in 2017 released Alsta’s first piece since 1978. It was inspired by the Nautoscaph diver and was named the Nautoscaph II. The case shape and dial design were very similar to the original 1960s and 1970s models, and the case size was increased from 36mm to 40mm to suit contemporary tastes. The Nautoscaph II was made in a limited run of 300 pieces and soon sold out. Rarely does one of these pieces come onto the pre-owned market.
MacFadyen wanted the revived Alsta brand to be as close to a continuation of the heritage as possible as opposed to simply creating a brand new vision, look and feel with an old name. The products, although modern in their execution, had to be inspired by and be a continuation of the heritage which began in 1946. In its first 30 years, Alsta watches were designed in the U.S. and manufactured in Switzerland, and in its new form watches have been designed in the UK and manufactured, again, in Switzerland.
In 2018 came the Nautoscaph III - which was a PVD-coated version of the Nautoscaph diver- and the Surf n Ski which was based upon the 1960s Sports piece but given a modern twist by having a PVD-coated case.
In 2020 came the release of Alsta's most popular piece by far – the Superautomatic 1975. This took three years to develop, mainly due to the difficulties in having the porthole “Hooper” bracelet engineered. Similarly to the Nautoscaph II and III, the Superautomatic 1975 was based upon the original ‘70s Superautomatic except with slightly larger dimensions to suit contemporary tastes (with a case size of 38mm as opposed to the original 36mm). It was initially released on a Tropic strap and on the “Hooper” bracelet; then, later in 2020, the strap version came on the Alsta “Orca” strap and the Tropic option was dropped. A beautiful, blue dial version limited to 50 pieces for the Japanese market was also introduced.
In 2021, Alsta released the Nautoscaph IV. The first iteration had a black dial and was followed by other versions with silver, blue, orange and red dials. A Salmon Pink version released exclusively in the Middle East.
2022 saw the release of the Nautoscaph V, sporting a bronze case and coming in two versions: the blue dial and strap “Anacapri” and the brown dial and strap “Porcelana”. 2023 saw the introduction of the Bronze Black and the Bronze Silver variants, which were mash ups of the Nautoscaph IV and Nautoscaph V.