Up to 2025, I’m back! Rescued from a trip to the dump, along with thousands of other small sheets belonging to a fascinating archive, I survived the Basel Fair! My year was 1976. What was my matter? The Neprosolar, one of the very first solar watches. Back to the future!
Textual Strory: Joël A. Grandjean, JSH Magazine & Swiss-Watch-Passport.ch’s editor in chief
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Today, I am slumbering in an office building in Neuchâtel, in a neighborhood that was once the site of the legendary Suchard chocolate factory. The premises belong to Origyn, a foundation whose goals include creating the “Shazam-like” tool for watches. My owner has temporarily deposited me here, surrounded by archives chronicling the history of watchmaking innovations between 1969 and 2000, so that I can feed their algorithms and AI.
Neprosolar in 1976, already a watchmaking UFO
To be precise, I am a press release from 1976, distributed to journalists visiting Basel: a single page with a real black-and-white picture print glued to it. Below there is a short text pecked on a typewriter in French, then translated into German and English. I was written to describe a revolutionary watch, the Neprosolar. Designed by Dr. Paolo Spadini, founder of the Nepro brand, this timepiece was one of the very first solar-powered watches. It was definitively an uncertain time, as the arrival of quartz movements supplied by Japan in large industrial quantities had cut tens of thousands of jobs in the Swiss watchmaking industry.
Paolo Spadini was one of those inventive activists of the resistance who, through their innovations and daring, gave the sector a few bursts of “wow effect” and attractiveness. The brand was also renowned for its miniature alarm clocks, some in the shape of transistor radios, with micro-speaker diaphragms that radiated and amplified sonic alarms.
The Spadini son restores me to new life
All of a sudden, a memorable morning in 2055, 50 years after I was conceived, a certain Daniele Spanini showed up. He had meticulously organized my re-connection! For him, they had rummaged through piles and piles of forgotten and buried papers. Until they found me, spruced up, looking like new…
At no point did I feel hurt: they simply duplicated me to make me bigger, gave me a spotlight and a facelift. I then learned that he was Paolo’s son and that he ran Alatron, a ubiquitous but discreet watchmaking company in La Chaux-de-Fonds.
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Back to the future, timeless face to face
Once outside, I got the shock of my life: standing in front of me was a doppelganger: a mirror-image, brand-new watch. In my former days, could anyone even have imagined the hypothesis of cloning? Using modern technology, its electronic movement, photovoltaic cell, and red light filaments have all been recreated and improved. Dynamic Motion in La Chaux-de-Fonds, a company renowned for its mastery of the most advanced electronic technologies and its flair for tailor-made developments, seems to have achieved the impossible. It has boosted my performance, my lifespan, and my rechargeable efficiency.
Daniele Spadini’s story has always been pure. Daniele Spadini, motivated and encouraged by his team, decided to honor his father Paolo, who was still alive when the 2025 model was designed. He has since passed away. He had the opportunity to co-sign my work, adding his signature to my legacy…
Neprosolar 2025, the incredible craze
Honestly, fifty years after I was called a watchmaking UFO, I never imagined I would still be able to appeal to so many people.
Year 2025 is falling in love with me, my curves, my aesthetic, and even my deliberately spirited contours
Looking back, it’s right to say that my design was groundbreaking, reflecting an era when the crisis was all about survival and burning sparks of creativity.
A first group of collectors, all loyal fans of Bamford in London, spurred the trend. They initiated my major comeback. Now, Alatron is relaunching me live right away, on a dedicated website. I can’t believe it: people turn to look at me, they say I’m chic. Young people and fifty-somethings are embracing me, geeks and the Next Gen are cheering me on…
I don’t have not even a hint of a wrinkle in sight; I belong to the higher realm of vintage and timelessness. I’m spreading, I’m for sale… In short, I’m living again!
I don’t have not even a hint of a wrinkle in sight; I belong to the higher realm of vintage and timelessness. I’m spreading, I’m for sale…Hence, I’m living again!
