Watchlords

I had a tough decision if I should post this. Many collectors have a difficult time with Russian watches because they cannot be clarified easily. “Is it real or not?” So I put together some facts to help others.


Some many people have so many opinions on Russians watches. The biggest problem is there are so many tourist watches out there “fakes”. In my opinion I do not have a problem buying these tourist watches, I own one. I just do not want to see others buying them and thinking they purchased an original and I also do not want to see someone over paying for one that is not original but a fake.


A tourist watch for people whom do not know is a Russian watch converted or put together from other / multiple Russian watches to make a watch to be sold to tourists. Some people also call these watches Franks short for a Frankenstein watch.


After and before the wall fell many Russian / Ukrainian watch makers created such watches. They obtained or took cases, parts, and or moments from watch factories in the former USSR and sold them on the black market. Today that market has grown even more.

Some watches out for sale have true Russian movements and parts, but a watchmaker has used parts from multiple watches to create a new fantasy / tourist watch, or they use an old movement and created a new body and face to create a brand new watch. Even worse over the last few years since older Russian movements are now getting more scarce some watches are totally created and made in China and sold as an Russian original.

The biggest fake out there is the Russian Zlatoust Vodolaz divers watch. The original has a stainless steel body and a nice large manual winding movement. After the wall fell many movements and cases where still available and taken from the factories. Many watch makers including the former Zlatoust Watch Factory created new dial and put them back together to sell to tourist. Many where made from original parts but they were never Russian navy issue. Some of the later watches have brass bodies cheaply chromed because they ran out of the original stainless steel cases. Easy to tell the differences if it does not look like the picture “shown below” than it’s a fantasy or tourist watch.

http://www.watchtalkforums.info/forums/thread65433.html

Someone tell "Shep" that the guy in his avatar is named SHEMP!!!

That's as far as I got. I can't read something written by someone so out of touch with the Stooges.

I like this part,"The second company making new divers is Invicta Watch Group. Invicta loves to copy other watch maker’s designs. There not even Russian they are based in the USA in Florida and most of their parts are manufactured in China and then shipped too and assembled in Switzerland, that’s how they can put the Swiss Made on their watches. If you did not know this well now you do."
Looks like he thinks it's bull shit about Grandma Laylo being a Russian dive watch expert.
I think he is wrong about them putting the shit watches together in Switzerland though.

To me, it's comical that anybody on the entire fucking planet would wear a Zlatoust diver unless he was welding an anchor chain or replacing a propeller on a fucking Russian submarine. While in some ways the mongoloid Russians were pretty good at some things, like murdering large numbers of Afghans with helicopter gunships, or killing Nazis by the boxcar-load, most of their industrial designs suck such enormous hairy and salty balls it's not even fair to make fun of them. When the Swiss were coming out with the Rolex Oyster case, or the Blancpain Fifty Fathoms, the Russians--no doubt appallingly jaked on brake fluid--came up with the Zlatoust diver, a horrible abortion of a watch that nobody but a Panamanian gangster and his brain-damaged fans could think cool and interesting.

Indeed, the entire Grandmama Lalo making a Swiss version of this piece of fucking revolting shit for "Important members of the Russian Navy" story is so absurd that it rankles anybody with any common sense. Important members of the Russian Navy, i.e. flag officers, would be as likely to wear one of these stupid pieces of shit as they would read out loud passages of Dr. Zhivago to Stalin.