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Vostok AMPHIBIAN Komandirskie Submarine Watch. It arrived from Ukraine yesterday. That's right, I bought a used Russian watch from a seller in Ukraine during a war. Ordered it on the last day of July and would have arrived a few days earlier if UPS hadn't sent it to the wrong facility. No worries though.
Why did I buy it? Hell, I didn't even know you could buy Russian watches for one thing and I figured Russian watches were about as reliable as a Trabant in a Siberian winter and you would be...wrong. See, Stalin saw a need in the USSR for a good, reliable watch. He noticed the average Russian upon exposure to decadent western watches would trade anything and everything he owned for what would be equivalent to a dimestore watch. Stalin, not too keen on the idea of his people not having the benefits of a domestic watch then decreed that the USSR should produce it's own watch. He sent his agents across the world and ended up buying a watch factory from the US that went out of business and moved the factory to mother Russia and even hired western employees at western wages to make watches. They eventually learned how to make watches and made more factories that made many, many watches. So many watches, far more than they could sell but who cared? They met their quotas
even as the warehouses filled up. That meant that watches were very very cheap in the USSR. I hear tell that after the fall of the Soviet Union that they were selling watched by the pound...
Anyway, from what I have read, the Vostok is a pretty good brand of CCCP watch and the AMPHIBIAN Komandirskie is considered a pretty reasonably well made watch from the late CCCP days. It is the same movement from their "SCUBA DUDE" dive watches and were reasonably robust for a mechanical watch where the rest of the world was doing quartz and digital. I'm told it was made sometime in the 1980's and is considered a bit rare compared to other watches with airplanes and tank themed ones but rare and Russian watches are very relative.
The watch is now displayed on a shelf with my reproduction Russian Ushanka Submarine commander's hat. What is the quality like? If you were to hand this 1980's watch to me and say this was a $15 American watch from the 1960's that had been refurbished I'd have no reason to argue. Is it high praise? No, but America went to the moon with similar watches years earlier so they were adequate.
Why did I buy it? Hell, I didn't even know you could buy Russian watches for one thing and I figured Russian watches were about as reliable as a Trabant in a Siberian winter and you would be...wrong. See, Stalin saw a need in the USSR for a good, reliable watch. He noticed the average Russian upon exposure to decadent western watches would trade anything and everything he owned for what would be equivalent to a dimestore watch. Stalin, not too keen on the idea of his people not having the benefits of a domestic watch then decreed that the USSR should produce it's own watch. He sent his agents across the world and ended up buying a watch factory from the US that went out of business and moved the factory to mother Russia and even hired western employees at western wages to make watches. They eventually learned how to make watches and made more factories that made many, many watches. So many watches, far more than they could sell but who cared? They met their quotas
even as the warehouses filled up. That meant that watches were very very cheap in the USSR. I hear tell that after the fall of the Soviet Union that they were selling watched by the pound...
Anyway, from what I have read, the Vostok is a pretty good brand of CCCP watch and the AMPHIBIAN Komandirskie is considered a pretty reasonably well made watch from the late CCCP days. It is the same movement from their "SCUBA DUDE" dive watches and were reasonably robust for a mechanical watch where the rest of the world was doing quartz and digital. I'm told it was made sometime in the 1980's and is considered a bit rare compared to other watches with airplanes and tank themed ones but rare and Russian watches are very relative.
The watch is now displayed on a shelf with my reproduction Russian Ushanka Submarine commander's hat. What is the quality like? If you were to hand this 1980's watch to me and say this was a $15 American watch from the 1960's that had been refurbished I'd have no reason to argue. Is it high praise? No, but America went to the moon with similar watches years earlier so they were adequate.
Category Photography / Still Life
Species Unspecified / Any
Size 1007 x 1053px
File Size 1.08 MB
If I hadn't already bought this thing, I came across a listing for a Russian watch that said, "Death to Spies" in Russian on the dial, I was tempted to buy it. It was post CCCP so it was likely more of a tourist item than something a real Russian would wear. The submarine on the watch I have is verging on Mickey Mouski levels as it is.
As a trained watchmaker, I worked on a couple of vintage Vostok pieces. Definitely not a Geneva seal movement but tough, and a true work horse movement. I've worked on Rolex pieces too, which are quite interesting. However, all the major brands make it extremely hard for independent watchmakers to get factory parts, which requires a manufacturer parts accounts etc. Some manufacturers require you sell their watch brand just get a parts account for watchmakers to add to the complexity and costs.
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