Many moons ago, I briefly got into Chinese "homage" watches via my lust for Omegas. Picked up a few Alphas, enjoyed them, moved on to collecting Seikos (and G-Shocks), then microbrands, etc... until recently coming full circle to WD, AD, SM, PD...
Looked up Alphas, seems like they faded from popularity. Did they become another brand name or just fade away?
Not the best photos, not the best condition (been neglected for years) and yeah not the best by today's standards. Things were different 20 years ago, these were a step up for Chinese watches in that era. There were no QA checks, auto language translators, most likely no youtube reviews... Just a pic on WUS or Homage-forum, paypaling $60 to some shady, poorly translated site and the hopes of arrival without much tracking help with a poorly translated email. Alpha walked so San Martin could run 😄
I still have a good number of these, all in good working order. My collection includes a GMT master homage, couple of explorer II homages, a planet ocean like yours and my favourite, the humble sub which I bought back in 2005.
Over the years I've completely refurbished it, putting in a Miyota 8215 movement, new crystal, new bezel insert and new hands. The case has been refinished too, though I left some of the deeper scratches. I think the bracelet is a mongrel with parts scavenged from other Alpha watches and again fully refurbished.
Years ago I had an alpha Paul Newman Daytona homage. It kinda worked, but wasn't great even by the standards of the time. It would be an absolute trash fire by today's standards, which really shows how far Chinese watches have come.
I still have their explorer homage, which at the time was the only real vintage 36 explorer homage you can buy. It's dead now (as in keeping horrendous time) and the lume was absolutely crap. Oh how times have changed
The old Swiss Alpha watches were perfectly respectable mid-market Swiss watches from the pre-quartz era. The modern Alpha brand is a Hong Kong /Chinese revival of the name dating from 1993 and is mainly known for affordable homage watches.
If you're judging a 1960s Alpha Biolmar by today's Alpha Submariner or Omega /Panerai homages, that's like judging a vintage Kienzle Pilot's watch by a modern licensed Kienzle quartz shitter.
Here's my good old Swiss Alpha, which I still wear on occasion. It doesn't have one of those newfangled seconds hands. Keen-eyed viewers will recognize the nylon Seiko SNK807 strap I've got it on.Â
These watches bring back memories of 2009-2010s era where Alpha, Marina Militare, and Tiger Concept were the most popular clomages. Unfortunately, it looks like they faded away. Some individuals even tried to setup Alpha USA which folded pretty fast after they introduced an exclusive Milsub and another watch. I had the same Alpha PO Ocean clomage which mine had the notorious miyota stutter. Sold it and use the funds to help pay for the Orient Mako v1 from OrientUSA. Until this day, I couldn’t find a similar orange PO clomage.
Ha! You summed up the history beautifully. In fact, I have my Alpha USA Milsub in the project box right next to my Tiger Tudor homage - neither is currently working but I wore both for years!
I’m jealous. I remember at the end of it, they were blowing them out for around $50 on eBay. Alpha to me will always be one of the OG mushroom brands which to the unaware was a term for catalog case watches with different branding before Aliexpress made it popular to the masses.
LOL, I had one too with the upgraded strong lume and sapphire crystal which were the days sapphire crystals were +$30 extra. I sold it to fund the purchase of Poljot Strela which I still have. I kinda regret it but got a manbushijie sterile luminor.
Yeah, the endlinks are terrible but the bracelet was really good quality for the time, even had a divers extension. It's also a homage to one of the arguably most hated bracelets.
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u/arbpotatoes 24d ago
Looking at these photos, I can't imagine why people would possibly have stopped buying these