I ordered a Rodina automatic and I can’t wait 😍😍😍 hoping it will arrive tomorrow.
I have a working Sekonda and a fualty but both I have been practising watchmaking on and this Rodina has been serviced so I won’t need to mess with it and hopefully won’t have that incessant itch to take it apart.
Soviet watch appreciation thread.
I’ll try to remember to post a pic when it finally gets here. The wait is just beginning for me. In the meantime, my Luch, Slava, and Raketa happened to be on the bench.
Where I live there’s barely a watch market at all, definitely no vintage Soviet. All my USSR watches have come from Ebay via Ukraine. Which… I’ve had some good and bad luck, in terms of function and originality. You have to be really careful and compare the details to a reference, especially with the more famous/popular pieces. Look at the Raketa and see if you can spot what I missed during purchase, lol.
I’ve heard in Ukraine they have massive parts bins and spend their days assembling frankenwatches to sell, some of them I am fine with but I’ve seen awful custom dials.
Spotting on your deluxe, it looks original but is that crown a little longer or is it the 12 o-clock index?
Bueatiful collection though, the one on the left looks factory new
100% true on the Ukrainian sellers. It’s very difficult to find a good Luch 2209 (like the one on the right), Raketa Kopernik, Raketa Big Zero, etc. There are some good sellers though. vintage_ua_watches has been pretty consistent for me.
It’s hard to complain too much for the prices, I guess - we’re not talking about vintage Omega or Rolex here. But I like to aim for originality when I can.
The gold dial Raketa (on the left) says “made in Russia” on it, not CCCP. So at the very least, the dial isn’t original. I’ve had it open for regulation and the movement looks about right though. It’s pretty good work so I’ve decided to live with it, original dials on that model tend to have aged poorly. (EDIT: ha, it might be original but post-'91, it does have the little triangular nick above 12 that real Raketa dials tend to have.)
As far as I know the others are pretty good :) That’s actually what the 12 hour index on the Luch is supposed to look like, 99% of the ones on Ebay are extremely crappy redials.