Albishorn's "Imaginary Vintage" project is a designer's brief disguised as a microbrand. Founder Sébastien Chaulmontet, ex-La Joux-Perret, makes watches that were never built but should have been: pieces that fit a specific decade, a specific use case, a specific layout, none of which actually shipped at the time. The Thundergraph series has always been the alpine chronograph that imaginary 1950s expeditions might have worn.
The 2026 Khumbu reference is the third Thundergraph variant and the first to ship with a steel bracelet.
The case: 39mm steel, crown left, pusher left
As Monochrome notes, the Khumbu keeps the established Thundergraph case at 39mm wide and 12mm tall. The crown sits at 10:30 and the single chronograph pusher at 9:30, both on the left side of the case. That layout is the watch's organising idea: the right wrist of a climber wearing thick gloves can operate both controls with the thumb, without rotating the wrist or pulling the cuff back.
The dial is the news. Albishorn calls the colour Khumbu, after the valley in northeastern Nepal that holds the southern approach to Everest. Worn & Wound describes it as a deep, slightly desaturated forest green, sunburst-finished, with a 30-minute counter at 6 and a small running-seconds register inset.
Calibre ALB03 M: Sellita base, Albishorn-finished
Inside is the calibre ALB03 M, a hand-wound monopusher chronograph that Albishorn builds on a Sellita base. SJX Watches reports the movement runs at 28,800vph, holds 65 hours of reserve, and is COSC-certified. The chronograph is a column-wheel design with a single pusher cycling start, stop, and reset, the format mountaineering chronographs adopted in the late 1940s when a separate pusher for reset was considered an unnecessary failure point.
The bracelet is the second piece of news. The Thundergraph has always shipped on a strap. The Khumbu introduces a three-link steel bracelet, brushed centre and polished outers, with a deployant clasp.
What it costs
Pricing is CHF 3,650 on the leather strap, around 3,800 euros. CHF 4,100 on the steel bracelet, around 4,300 euros. The piece is limited to 99 numbered examples, available exclusively from albishorn-watches.ch from April 2, 2026.
For a small Swiss independent without distribution overhead, that pricing places the Khumbu inside the same band as a Tudor Black Bay or a small-batch Massena LAB piece. Microbrand Watch World made the comparison directly in their preview: the Khumbu is one of the few watches at this price with a column-wheel chronograph, a COSC certification, and a use-case-driven layout that would not exist in any other catalogue.
The Imaginary Vintage idea works because it disciplines the design. A real 1950s alpine chronograph would not have a transparent caseback, a wide-fit deployant, or 200m water resistance. Albishorn keeps the layout, the colour palette, and the COSC discipline that the era would have aspired to, and writes the spec sheet to 2026 standards. The Khumbu is the cleanest expression of that brief the brand has shipped so far.
Sources: Monochrome on the Thundergraph Khumbu; SJX Watches on the green dial; Worn & Wound on the launch; Albishorn product page; Microbrand Watch World preview.
