Albishorn is a young brand with a specific idea. Founded in 2024 by Sébastien Chaulmontet, it builds what it calls imaginary vintage watches, models that look as though they came out of a particular decade but never actually existed. Its debut was the Maxigraph, a 1930s regatta chronograph that history skipped. Last year came the Marinagraph, a skin diver built around a story: the tool watch that could have sat on the wrist of the crew aboard Columbia, the American defender of the 1958 America's Cup. The brand is now back with two new Marinagraphs, the Classic and the Classic Fumé, introduced on Monochrome on 13 August 2026.
What is new is what is missing
The earlier Marinagraph wore an aluminium bezel with a tide scale, part of the nautical fiction. The two new references drop it. In its place sits a steel bidirectional bezel topped with a black domed sapphire crystal insert, its markings filled with Super-LumiNova. The effect is quieter and more legible, and it lets the dial carry the story on its own. Everything structural stays: the case is 39mm across, or 42.7mm counting the flared bezel, 13mm thick and 47.7mm lug to lug, satin finished with polished chamfers.
The layout is the part that stops people. This is a destro watch, but not the usual kind. The red anodised aluminium monopusher sits on the left flank at nine o'clock, with the crown above it at ten. Albishorn's reasoning is ergonomic rather than decorative: the thumb is the most efficient digit for pressing a chronograph, and the red pusher itself is a nod to Columbia's aluminium mast. The caseback is a solid screwed disc engraved with the silhouette of a twelve-foot yacht, marked FAB. SUISSE and PAT. PEND. Water resistance is 100 metres.
A countdown without a subdial
The Marinagraph does one clever thing and shows it plainly. Its regatta function is a ten-minute retrograde countdown, laid out as a blue-and-red arc in the lower left of the dial rather than in a sunken subdial. The last five minutes before the gun are picked out in red. The countdown hand sweeps back from ten toward zero, and at zero it disengages and freezes in place while the central chronograph seconds hand keeps running. In a real start sequence that matters: a frozen hand at the gun removes any doubt about where zero was.
Because there are no subdials, the dial stays open. The applied markers, triangles at the quarters and circles between, are left whole, not clipped by counters, and all carry Super-LumiNova. There is a small running indicator aperture at three o'clock. The hands end in rhomboid tips that echo the brand's mountain emblem. The Classic has a sunburst black dial with a red central seconds and countdown hand; the Classic Fumé has a white lacquered dial with a gradient finish and blue hands.
ALB01 A, a 7750 rethought
Inside is the proprietary and patented ALB01 A, a monopusher chronograph built on heavily modified Valjoux 7750 architecture, rotated and reworked around the countdown complication. It measures 30mm by 6.6mm, runs at 28,800 vibrations per hour, carries 25 jewels and holds 64 hours of reserve. The patent covers the ten-minute countdown regatta timer and its running indicator, which is the whole point of the watch.
Each colour is limited to 99 pieces. On a rubber strap, with a second rubber strap in the box, the price is CHF 3,950 excluding tax; on a steel bracelet, also supplied with two rubber straps, it is CHF 4,400 excluding tax. Sales open on 14 August 2026, online only, at albishorn-watches.ch. Two hundred watches, a single complication done well, and no pretence that any of the history is real. For a brand this new, that is a clear position to hold.
