Video Review of the Alpina Extreme Regulator Manufacture

When the Extreme Regulator Manufacture was announced in 2008, we were all very excited at the store. We were already sold on the Alpina watches current at that time, and an in-house movement is a big step for any watch company to take. The result was a fantastic-looking, sophisticated timepiece that sticks to Alpina's dedication to provide great value to luxury watch enthusiasts. It still is amongst the best price manufacture watches on the market today, and definitely one of the coolest.

We just uploaded a video presentation of the Alpina Extreme Regulator Manufacture as part of our series of videos, blog posts, and images regarding Alpina watches, that we got when visiting the Alpina factory and headquarters. If you do not see the video embedded below, visit the original post here. Enjoy!

The summer is a great time for watch enthusiasts. Coats are gone, sleeves are short, and wrists are naked and in plain view. Not only is your watch more evident, but this gives you the opportunity to peruse other people's wrists; something like a watch buffet. For a timepiece to be a good fit for this season it has to go with the feel, colour, and fun of summer, and it has to be suited for activities like swimming, travelling, or enjoying the cool evening breeze with friends. In this article I have chosen five Matt Baily watches that make fine luxury accessories for the summer.

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BR 03-94 Heritage

Like all the Bell & Ross BR Instruments, the BR 03-94 Heritage is a watch that you want people to see. It is not conspicuous, but it offers a remarkable style that is well balanced and simple. As good as this 42mm square watch can look poking out from under the cuff of your shirt, it looks even better when the contrast between black and beige is fully displayed on your wrist. This brings up an important aspect of great summer watches, the strap. A tanned leather band like the one on the Bell & Ross Heritage watches, feels summery and light. Furthermore, all of the brand#39;s BR Instruments come with a secondary strap and specialized tools to interchange between it and the original. In the case of the BR 03-94 Heritage, the secondary strap is of black rubber. A quick swap and the watch, which boasts a water resistance rating of 100 meters, is ready for a relaxing day at a waterfront near you.

Alpina Avalanche Extreme Auto w/ Black PVD

Summer activities play a big role in our love for the hot season. A timepiece that is suitable for all these and also for more formal events would be a reasonable addition to this list. All Alpina watches in the Extreme collection are designed to be as rugged as they are beautiful. They are all awarded with a water resistance rating of at least 100 meters and come fitted with a rubber strap. The Avalanche Extreme Auto with black PVD is particularly well rounded. The large, decorated crown is screw locking and the watch has a water resistance rating of 200 meters. This designation means that the Avalanche Extreme Auto can not only be submerged in water, but is suitable for recreational water sports like water skiing, wind-surfing, and very light diving. The rubber strap is very comfortable and dries quickly, so you can take the watch from the beach to the restaurant. Thanks to the stylish design of this 48mm Alpina timepiece it can be worn for a multitude of occasions all through the summer.

Avalanche Extreme Auto. With original dial (left) and numeral dial (right)

Hamilton Jazzmaster Slim 43 With a Milanese Bracelet

There is a definitive style for summer apparel. It is light in colour and in feel, and simplicity often dominates regardless of how bold the design may be. Hamilton#39;s Jazzmaster Slim 43 collection captures the simple elegance of vintage watches from the sixties, and fuses it with contemporary size and technology. The model that particularly stands out as the perfect summer watch is the one with a silver dial and the Milanese strap. The Milanese strap is a modernized version of the metal mesh bracelets that were once welded to the case of watches. The mesh strap adds a fashionable, elegant aspect to the Slim 43, but allows air to pass through it unlike bracelets made with wide, solid links. I always have visions of tennis players from the Sixties and Seventies when dealing with this watch. Their style was light, airy, and summery for the sake of performance, but also a basis for the design of much fashionable apparel.

U-Boat Classico CAS 2

Large watches love summer. There are less shirt cuffs to impede and a naked wrist is a far better stage than one that is covered with a jacket or coat. The U-Boat Classico Chronograph Automatic Steel (CAS) Beige is amongst these large, luxury timepieces. As mentioned before, lighter colours are ideal for summer, matching the lighter moods of people. The Classico CAS 2 is fitted with a beige dial and a tan, leather strap. Rubber straps are also available for these models, which are tested for a 100m water resistance rating. The Classico CAS is available in 45 or 53mm. However large the diameter of these watches is, a large wrist is not a prerequisite. A few women, for example, wear the 53mm Classicos, and for good reason. It looks really great.

Hamilton Seaview Medium Automatic 37 - For Women

Considering that some women have no qualms about wearing 53mm U-Boat watches, it is clear that the days when ladies#39; watches had to be tiny and fragile are over. For 2010, Hamilton considerably expanded their offerings of automatic, luxury watches for women. Amongst the new models, the Seaview Medium Automatic, in particular the variation with a white dial, is perfectly adapted for the summer. The company describes it as a timepiece for busy individuals, but these "action-packed agendas" eventually give way to summer vacation, to which the Seaview Medium is well adapted. It offers a robust water resistance rating of 200 meters, suitable for swimming and light water sports. A white rubber bracelet completes the impermeability of the piece. The white dial Seaview Medium is delivered in a special presentation case that also includes a white leather strap and a metal bracelet. All the straps an bracelets are equipped with pushers so that they can be interchanged easily by hand, a feature appropriate for such a versatile watch.

Summer is here. We can forget our parkas and insulated boots, and feel free and airy within our warm-weather-wear. Short sleeves make wearing our watches more enjoyable. The hot months are the best time to adorn our favourite timepieces.

The Alpina Extreme Regulator, once known as the Avalanche Extreme Regulator, is a very important model in the Alpina watch line-up. It captures two important aspects of the manufacture's personality. The first is the large, bold, sporty case. The other is the Regulator function, that is found on many of Alpina's desirable models. Apart from an important reason for Matt Baily's desire to become an authorized retailer of Alpina watches, the Extreme Regulator has attracted many watch enthusiasts to Alpina Genève.

The 48mm wide case is suiting for a watch with the word "extreme" in its name. While rather large, the watch has a relatively low profile, which makes it very manageable to wear on any wrist size. My wrist is seven inches in diameter and I wore the similarly sized Extreme Automatic for months, loving every second of it. The individual features of the case are worth looking at. The thick bezel is coated with a protective, but also attractive, layer of black metal via a PVD treatment. It is held to the case with six specially manufactured screws that display the company's triangular logo. The crown is also quite bold, and a rubber grip is fitted onto it. The crown is protected by shoulders on either side of it, and these are reflected on the left side of the case thanks to the stylized shape of the watch.

The reason that the Alpina Extreme Regulator is so extreme is that it is inspired by adventurers. Switzerland is full of these types, which is not surprising considering the presence of the Alps. Alpina's ambassadors span many activities including skiing, scuba diving, climbing, and more. Alpina watches are inspired by these extreme activities and this explains why all the models in the Extreme collection are water resistant to a minimum of 100 meters and are delivered on a rubber strap. The remarkable strap that Alpina has developed is resistant, but also soft and comfortable. Its texture is velvety.

Inside the Alpina Extreme Regulator you will find the AL-650-5 calibre, which starts off as an ETA 6498-2 ébauche and gets modified by the company's watchmakers to add the regulator function. It is also receives a finishing suited for much more expensive watches. It is decorated with côte de geneve and all engravings are burnished. Alpina is still a relatively small company, with a yearly production of only about 10,000 watches. Its name therefore is far from being well known, but the beautiful movement, traditional regulator complication, unique style, quality construction, and great value speak for themselves. This probably explains why so many of our clients that purchased the Alpina watches when they first arrived at the boutique were collectors.

The Alpina Extreme Regulator offers unique design that mixes tradition with innovation, quality manufacturing, a simple but impressive complication, and great value. It is no wonder that it is such a hit amongst collectors.

If you do not see a video embedded here, please visit the original post on the Baily Blog

This blog entry is part of a series of video reviews and articles presenting this year's newest and most exciting Alpina watches. See entire series ...

What makes a watch successful? Sometimes it is advertising, sometimes it is the brand name, but sometimes it is because the watch is a great timepiece and offers great value. The Alpina Extreme Diver models have made many watch buyers very happy since their release a little over a year ago. Despite being amongst the most expensive, non-manufacture models in the collection, you are getting a lot of quality and style for the money. Early in 2010 several new variations have been added in the collection. I was invited to play with them at Alpina headquarters in Geneva, where I shot a video review for MattBaily.ca.

The Extreme Divers are robust and cool. They incorporate several noteworthy features. The dial, which has been made available with orange, yellow, blue, and black hands and markers, is impressively easy to read. The clean design is bold and simple, but is actually adorned with some pretty intricate details that are clearly visible in the HD video below. In the centre, Alpina designers have put a triangular, tiled pattern. The hour markers are slightly raised for relief.

The stainless steel case, which is blackened via the PVD process for all the coloured dial variations, also offers a few interesting details. The rugged bezel is uni-directional and ratcheted like all true diver's watches. The graduations, representing mostly ten-minute intervals, are black, but treated with phosphorescent paint in order to be visible in the underwater darkness. The effect of the black markings is most dramatic on the all-black version of the Extreme Diver.

The exhibition back also sets the Extreme divers apart from most other diving watches. It is rare to see sapphries crystals fitted to the back of this type of watch. All crystals must be very thick in order to withstand massive pressure deep under water, and the Extreme Divers are rated for 1000 meters. This feat is welcome as the automatic AL-525 calibre movement is very well finished and a pleasure to look at.

Do you see a video embedded here? If not, view it at the original post.

This blog entry is part of a series of video reviews and articles presenting this year's newest and most exciting Alpina watches. See entire series ...

Being invited to visit Frédérique Constant and Alpina' headquarters in Geneva, I packed my G11 and HD camcorder and made my way to Plan-les-Ouates. This neighbourhood, as I found out, is home to some of the most prestigious watch companies in the world. Since I had never visited this area before, I opted for the roughly thirty minute walk from the train station to discover it. On the way I encountered manufacturing facilities for Rolex, Patek Philippe, and several other watchmaking giants.

While I was always a fan of Alpina watches, I was still a bit new to FC. During the visit I was not only introduced to many of the two companies' newest models but witnessed how the in-house, manufacture movements are created from the ground up, giving me a new appreciation for how remarkable they are.

I chose my five favourite pictures for this post, but below them you will find a link to the full set of 38 images that I posted on Flikr. The images depict the tour and offer descriptions of each step, so click on "show info" if this interests you. I hope you visit them and that you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed visiting the factory.

This heavy-duty machine carves every part of all the manufacture movements out of solid blocks of metal. A typical piece takes about one hour and a half to be machined with the precision to meet Alpina and Frédérique Constant standards.

All the parts built in the machining room are sent up to this atelier, which is dedicated to the assembly of the remarkable in-house movements built by Alpina and Frédérique Constant. The head watchmaker, with the blue shirt, monitors all work closely and three specialized watchmakers are dedicated to assembling, and servicing the rare and complicated tourbillon mechanisms.

A Frédérique Constant tourbillon cage has been trapped inside a glass block to allow visitors to observe its 80 parts, which include a Silicium escapement wheel, which depicts the company's crest.

Half of a spent silicium wafer. The escapement wheels and levers are cut out of this high-tech material. Each wafer is priced at roughly CHF 60K!

This was my favourite part of the watchmaking atelier. In order to get in, one must go through this cleaning chamber where he or she is shot with jets of air that is consequently aspirated by vacuums in order to be rid of all loose dust particles. It is like an air jacuzzi.

View all 38 items on Flikr as a slideshow

Thank you to everyone at Alpina watches and Frédérique Constant who took time to welcome me warmly into their fantastic work place.

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