Marking Time
A Guide to Russian Watch
Collecting
by Edward Brandwein
Copyright ©2011
Edward Brandwein
ISBN: 978-0-615-47167-9
Smashwords
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Table of Contents
Introduction
Chapter
1: The Russians
Chapter
2: The Vostok Amphibia
Chapter
3: The Ministry Amphibia
Chapter
4: The Russian Watch Forum Radio Operator Review
Chapter
5: The Original Radio Operator
Chapter
6: The Vostok Komandirskie
Chapter
7: The Komandirskie Revisited
Chapter
8: The Vostok Desert Shield Generalskie
Chapter
9: The Ostwok Vostok Generalskie
Chapter
10: The Vostok Neptune
Chapter
11: The Komandirskie 3AKA3
Chapter
12: The Poljot Buran Chronograph
Chapter
13: The Raketa 24 Hour
Chapter
14: The Raketa Braille Watch
Chapter
15: The Molnija Pocket Watch
Chapter
16: The Poljot Shturmanskie Chronograph and Poljot Gagarin
re-issue
Chapter
17: The Zlatoust Diver re-issue
Chapter
18: The Pobeda
Chapter
19: The Type 1
Chapter
20: The Movements
Chapter
21: Combinations & Modifications
Conclusion
I'm willing to bet that when most folks hear the phrase, "watch collector," a similar thought goes through their heads. Bring money, preferably bags of it. Watch collecting is one of those hobbies which most folks naturally assume is a rich man's game. Your average Joe in the street may not know the exact price for a quality watch but pretty much everyone is aware at some level that nice watches cost some serious coin. I'm willing to bet that if you ask any ten people to name a good watch, Rolex will get mentioned. Prod a bit and Omega, Longines, Cartier and Patek Philippe might be added as well. Do a little research and you will quickly realize that the prices for these goodies start in the thousands. Not shockingly, that's just too rich for most folks, especially in these post subprime crash days. So much for that idea, right? Well...not really.
Watch collecting as a hobby has been around for a long time. I'm guessing it began when some kid got two watches for his graduation. Regardless of how it got started though, it's become a popular pastime for many people. Some folks collect watches as an investment, others for the sake of fashion. Many people have become collectors after inheriting an heirloom watch. For me, there are several levels of appeal to this hobby. At one level, I feel that while I may not be able to do anything about the passage of time, like give myself more of it for instance, I can at least measure it with precision. It isn't much in the way of control, admittedly, but at least I have a tool that lets me use what time I have efficiently. At another level, watches are occasionally built to memorialize some historical event, in effect becoming a little piece of history themselves. I love getting my hands on one of these pieces. Finally, and if for no other reason, I think watches are intrinsically interesting, especially when you realize what goes into them. The engineering in even the most basic of timepieces is quite remarkable. If you're with me so far and you want to play this game, here's the deal in a nutshell, there are loads of high quality watches out there that can be had on an ordinary human being's budget. The trick is to keep an open mind about brands and countries of origin.
In the sections ahead, a series of watch reviews will be presented. The reviews are based on a blog that I started a few years ago called Ed's Corner. On the blog, in a mostly stream of consciousness style, are my photos and impressions of a number of poor man's timepieces that I have owned through the years. This book represents a cleaned up compilation of the Russian watch reviews on Ed's Corner. I hope you like it.
Let's start with some of the basics. We watch collectors have a pretty well developed jargon to describe the details of our hobby. The rich, high society way of saying watch collector is horologist for starts. This is the Rolex collector's way of naming his or her watch collecting hobby. For somebody who is collecting at a more modest level, just plain watch collector will do. There are two basic types of watches, mechanicals and quartz. A quartz watch is technically any watch that uses a vibrating quartz crystal to regulate the timing of the watch. From a practical standpoint, that means a battery powered watch, be it the conventional kind where the battery gets changed every so often or the solar/kinetic variety where the battery lasts the life of the watch. The other kind of watch, mechanicals, are the ones where the watch is powered by a spring that either must be manually wound up or is automatically wound by a flywheel rotor attached to the movement that spins when the wearer moves.
Traditionally, watch collectors concentrated on mechanical watches only. Mechanical watches supposedly better illustrated the watchmaker's craft and somehow had more soul. Among poor man watch collectors, this distinction is largely considered nonsense. Quartz watches are technological marvels and some of them, Citizen Eco Drives & Casio Solar Atomics to name a few, may just be the most effective timepieces ever built. (In the case of the two examples mentioned, the solar charged quartz movements will run without service for the life of the watch and some Casios operate with atomic clock accuracy).
The reviews that follow will make mention of the various bits and pieces that go into a watch. For clarity's sake, I will give a rundown of them.
The crystal is the glass over the hands of the watch. Crystals can be made from mineral glass (which is just plain old glass to the rest of us), Hardlex (a Seiko built hardened glass), acrylic (plastic), or synthetic sapphire. In terms of desirability, sapphire is the most scratch resistant of the crystal materials but also the most expensive. Acrylic is the most easily scratched but can be polished back into good shape easily. (A little tooth paste and a cotton ball will usually do). Mineral glass splits the difference in scratch resistance and is inexpensive.
The watch case is the physical housing that holds the guts of the watch. Watch cases can be made of solid gold, gold plated base metal, base metal (which technically means something other than gold but has come to mean plated brass) plastic or stainless steel. In terms of desirability, base metal is considered less desirable that solid metals because the plating it uses can be scratched or worn away over time. That is generally not an issue with gold or solid stainless (although gold plate can wear away too). Plastic cases are generally used in sports watches where durability is most important.
Mechanical watches use jewels as pivot points in their movements to reduce wear due to friction. (Many quartz watches have jeweled movements too but the utility of these jeweled pivots in a quartz movement is up in the air). There is a misconception that more jewels means a better watch. The process of adding more and more jewels to a watch’s movement has become a game lately. Each movement design has an optimal number of pivot points where a jewel would help. Anything beyond that number is just there for advertising purposes. There are watch companies who deliberately add more jewels than needed for the sake of making their products sound more desirable. Don't be concerned with counting jewels in a watch (Unless we're talking about decorative diamonds on the outside of the watch case. Count those to your heart's content).
The crown is the knob on the side of a watch that is used for setting the time and day/date if so equipped. In many mechanicals, it is also used for winding the mainspring. (note- I said many and not all for a reason. Some of the most popular mechanical watches in the world do not hand wind. They rely exclusively on an auto wind rotor). On water resistant watches, the crown typically screws down into the watch case to keep water out.
Water resistance in a watch is generally measured by how deep a watch can be submerged before the case begins to leak. Water is generally kept out of a watch through the use of rubber or silicon gaskets. As time passes, these gaskets will need to be checked by a jeweler to ensure that they are still functioning. As a general rule, a diver's watch should be water resistant to a depth of at least 200 meters. A watch with a 100 meter water resistance rating is ok for swimming but not diving. In my opinion, any watch with less than a 100 meter depth rating should probably not be immersed in water for any length of time. The seals in such a piece should be fine for keeping out rain or stray water from washing one's hands but swimming with such a watch should probably be avoided.