Alpa was formerly a Swiss camera design company and manufacturer of 35 mm SLR cameras. The current owners bought the company name after bankruptcy of the original company and the company exists today as a designer and manufacturer of high-end medium-format cameras (Website alpa.ch). Alpa was an offshoot of the Pignons S.A. company, which made a particular part (pinions) for Swiss watches. They made high-end, all-metal 35mm cameras with a similar high-end but smaller-volume market to Germany's Leica, Contax, and Rolleiflex. In the late 1930s, Pignons invited engineer Jacques Bolsky to design a camera for them. This he did with the Alpa-Reflex in the 1940s. In true Swiss fashion, each camera was individually crafted. Thus, production was low, but quality and prices were high. Even these days, collectible Alpa cameras can fetch quite a high auction price. It is estimated that as few as 40,000 cameras of all models of Alpa were made during the company's 40-year history. Allowing for certain gaps, the serial numbers would support that, as the last cameras made (in about 1990) carried serial numbers of only 64,xxx. More information...
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