Alpina Heritage Automatic Brings the Roaring '20s Heat at Geneva Watch Days

Since its revival in 2002, Swiss sports-watch specialist Alpina has been inextricably linked with its dressier sister brand, Frederique Constant, which was launched that same year. More recently converted watch enthusiasts might mistakenly believe that both brands debuted together, but Alpina is actually much older, tracing its origins all the way back to 1883. However, what has always been clear about Alpina and FC, both now owned by Japan’s Citizen Watch Group, is that the brands do not impinge on the other’s stylistic territory: Alpina does rugged mountaineering-themed sports watches, divers, and pilots; Frederique Constant eschews tool-watch aesthetics in favor of more elegant timepieces and pushes further into high-complication territory, like flyback chronographs and perpetual calendars. Lately, however, with its defiantly retro Heritage models, Alpina appears to be bending those rules a bit, and doing so in a quite satisfying way indeed.

Debuting this week during Geneva Watch Days is the newest model to join the iconoclastic Heritage series, following up the rectangular-cased Heritage Carrée models and the compressor-style Seastrong Heritage divers’ models of recent years. Like those predecessors, the Heritage Automatic 2024 evokes the design language of Alpina watches from the 1920s through the 1940s — in the case of this model, a timepiece whose original dimensions were a very modest 25.7mm. Alpina doesn’t go so far as to re-create that decidedly dainty size in the modern version, but scales up the case up to a more contemporary but still understated 38mm in diameter and 10.15mm thick. All the dial elements are more or less faithful to those of the watch’s early 20th-century ancestor, including the sector-style minute track, blued Dauphine hands, printed numerals and indexes, and period-appropriate vintage Alpina logo. In a nod to modernity, the box-type crystal over the dial is made of sapphire rather than the plexiglas that would have adorned the original. 

Also inscribed on the dial, at 6 o’clock, is the notation “26 jewels,” another period-appropriate touch that references the movement inside,Alpina’s automatic Caliber AL-520, which is a no-date version of the base Caliber AL-525, itself actually a rebranded version of the ubiquitous Sellita SW200-1. The movement, which runs in the 26 synthetic rubies called out on the dial, offers a 38-hour power reserve (somewhat pedestrian by today’s standards, for sure, but adequate for the era this watch commemorates) and beats at a fairly brisk 28,800 vph. It ticks behind a solid threaded caseback that is largely un-embellished other than an engraved Alpina logo.

Two versions of the dial are available: one in all-beige with the hours marked by 12 black-printed Arabic numerals, the other with a beige center, a satin-finished gray hour circle, and a combo of hour indexes and Arabic hour numerals, all printed in a bronze color. Both versions of the Heritage Automatic come on calf leather straps with pin buckles, a no-frills approach that would have been the only option at the time this watch’s stylistic predecessor debuted. The polished stainless steel case is water resistant to just 30 meters, another detail that marks the Heritage Automatic as distinctly a vintage-inspired dress watch and sets it apart from the rest of Alpina’s largely sporty and ruggedly built line. Perhaps most notably, dispute the fact that Alpina is treading ever-so-lightly into Frederique Constant’s territory with this launch, the watch is still distinctly an Alpina. And with more than 140 years of history to draw from, it would not be at all surprising if Alpina surprises us all with more Heritage pieces in the coming years.

Both versions of the Alpina Heritage Automatic will be available at retail in October 2024 and will retail for $1,795.