Alsta Nautoscaph Superautomatic 'JAWS'

A man on a boat looks out to sea, scanning for the danger lurking beneath the waves. He spots the foreboding shape of a triangular dorsal fin cutting through the waves towards a group of swimmers. He holds a Walkie up to his mouth. The watch on his wrist glints in the sun. The man is Oceanographer Matt Hooper (portrayed by the inimitable Richard Dreyfuss) and the film is of course JAWS, the seminal 1975 nautical horror classic that made a whole generation afraid of the water. But for some watch collectors, the drama centered not on the shark, but on what watch Richard Dreyfuss wore in the film. Decades passed before someone figured it out. In 2010, two brothers hit on the watch’s identify after years of poring over screen grabs and Google searches… and then uncovered an even greater mystery. The watch, it turned out, was an Alsta Nautoscaph. But as was the case with many mechanical watch brands after the Quartz Crisis, there was little for the brothers to go on once they made their di