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Kirov
(Q1)
Valjoux 61
(17 jewels)
- Identical with Valjoux caliber 61.
- An international collaboration assembled in Soviet Union from Swiss parts.
- Very rare.
- This caliber was considered by the factory to be a milestone in the improvement of the quality & sophistication of Soviet-made timepieces.
- The collection contains 5 examples of this rare caliber.
1st State Watch Factory
5-0
(15 jewels)
- Some or all parts on this piece made in Moscow.
- With Gostrest Tochmekh logo on inside back cover.
- Very rare.
- This caliber is essentially a scaled down version of the Type-1 movement.
- The collection contains 3 examples of this caliber; see number 0596 & 1553 for a similar Type-3 pieces assembled in Moscow.
(Q2)
(18 jewels)
- Amphibia Case Type 1190 (later called Type 630), as per Samuel Tang.
- 300 meters.
- With original military issue metal container & passport papers.
- See also No. 1509 for an earlier 300-meter Vostok military dive watch.
(State Trust of Precision Mechanics)
гострест точмех
москва
- Extremely rare.
- Trotsky, born 07.11.1879, was a Bolshevik revolutionary & Marxist theorist & one of the leaders of the October Revolution. In the party hierarchy he was 2nd only to Lenin. He served as People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs & later as the founder & commander of the Red Army & the People's Commissar of War. He was also one of the 1st members of the Politburo. After leading a failed struggle against Stalin's policies he was expelled from the party & exiled in February 1928. He continued to oppose Stalinism from exile. On 20.08.1940 he was assassinated by a Stalinist agent in Mexico, where he was staying as a guest of Communist artists Diego Rivera & Frida Kahlo.
- Prior to the revolution, tin-face clocks featuring religious images & images of the Tsar & his family were produced at the Vasiliy Il’ich Platov factory in Sharapovo Village, outside of Moscow. After the revolution, this factory was operated by Gostrest Tochmekh to produce clocks with propaganda-themed dials.
- The collection contains 10 Khodiki tin face propaganda clocks dating from the 1920s to the 1960s.
Kirov
- Base movement is a Lange & Sohne Lever chronometer numbered & modified by Soviets to a detend chronometer with Griesbach balance. From Hans Jürgen Grandmontagne, 'How Much Glashuette Could Be In Kirov Movements' in the German magazine 'Klassik Uhren', Sept. 1997.
- No Geneva striping
- Case & fittings are steel or chrome plate on brass.
- Original box w/key.
- Altmeppen in his book 'Das Deutsche Einheits-Chronometer' refers to this caliber as "The German Unit Chronometer in Russian Dress" ("Das Deutsche Einheits-Chronometer in russischem Gewand").
- According Altmeppen, Alexander Belyakov, Head of Navigational Education at the Zhukovsky Academy in the 1940s, reported that a total of 25 of these chronometers were assembled from German components & an additional 5 from Soviet made components between 1939, when materials were received as part of the short-lived 1939 Soviet-Nazi trade agreement, & 1949, when production of the 6MX marine chronometer commenced. I know of only 2 still in existence.
- The collection contains 17 boxed marine & aviation chronometers.
Kirov
under license from
Ulysse Nardin le Locle
357 (on dial & box)
- Dial and gilt brass movement signed '1st Moscow Watch Factory'.
- Volute/chain-movement, spring chronometer escapement, integral balance.
- Earliest Soviet naval / marine chronometer.
- See also No. 1443 for a similar Soviet 'Nardin' chronometer with dial signed 'NII-5' ('Scientific Research Institute No. 5').
- Reportedly only about 400 units were produced with the dial signatures divided between NII & 1st Moscow Watch Factory.
The discrepancy between the number on the dial & the number on the movement is intentional. According to Altmeppen the dial number corresponds to the station where the clock was assigned. No. 1443 displays a similar discrepancy.
- Box is a modern replacement. See No. 1443 for a similar chronometer in an original box.
-The collection contains a total of 17 boxed marine and aviation chronometers.
(7 jewels)
- The first production from the 1st State Watch Factory started coming off the line in Moscow on 07 November 1930. These early pieces had a setting button at '1'. The presence of this setting button dates this piece to the very end of 1930 or the earliest months of 1931.
- The collection has 3 examples of Type-1 watches with the setting lever at ‘1’ & a total of more than 100 Type-1 watches, one of the most comprehensive assemblages in existence.
32yH
(15 jewels)
- Very early date; production commenced in 1946.
- Classic 'Red 12' dial. Reportedly this dial design was approved by Stalin himself.
- Case is the same as the one in record number 0565.
- See record number 0495 for another 1946 Pobeda.
- The collection has more than 100 Pobeda watches with different dial styles from several factories.
(17 jewels)
- Apparently produced for or commemorates Soviet manned drifting Ice Station 'North-15' established by V.V.Panov in 1966.
- Very rare dial and movement. I know of only one other piece.
- 20 micron gold plating.
- See also No. 1401 for an earlier FMWF 24-hour watch & 0844 for another polar-themed 24-hour watch.
Moscow
м. л. райсовета
москва
unsigned
for stopwatch function
- Stopwatch made from modified Type-1 movement.
- Trust of Local Industry of Railway District Soviet was a small workshop probably related to the Trust of Local Industry of Sokolniki District &/or Industrial Cooperative Artel 'Right Time'. These small watchmaking workshops (if, indeed, there were more than 1) were shut down just before the Second World War & many participants sent to the Stalinist Gulag.
- Railway district (in Russian Zheleznodorozhnyi ) was separated out from Sokolniki district in 1936.
- The collection contains 19 Type-1 watches with modified movements, one of the largest groups in the world.