The camera was eventually named the Alpa because it was light, pocketable, and might easily be brought along travelling in the Alps.

The manufacturer was Pignons S.A, Ballaigues, and the designer was Jacques Bolsky born December 31, 1895, in Kiev as Yakob Bogopolsky.

In 1942 a small production series B starting at serial number 11.000 was completed for local sale, but no record of it exists at the factory.

The camera was first presented for a wider public in April 1944 at the Swiss Trade Fair in Basel (Schweizer Mustermesse), and soon production began in earnest with the series C, albeit at a very slow rate: 115 was made in 1944 and 434 in 1945.

[2] In 1949, the Alpa Prisma-Reflex was introduced, sporting a pentaprism finder, which was a new feature in 35mm SLR cameras about this time; also seen a year before on the Rectaflex from Rome, Italy, and the Contax S from Zeiss Ikon in Dresden.