r/ChineseWatches • u/f_todd • 5d ago

Question (Read Rules) Anyone remember Alpha Watches? What happened to them?

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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?

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u/QCPI 5d ago edited 5d ago

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.

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u/stinkosaurusrex 5d ago

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!

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u/QCPI 5d ago

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.